Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.4

c4.4

The material for such a study, we mean of the Administrative Machinery, furnished by the *Jātakas*, though meagre in quantity is none-the-less very valuable in quality. The *Jātakas*, as we know, are not administrative manuals which can supply us with a full connected and systematic account of the various aspects of administration of the time like the *Arthaśāstra* or the *Dharma Sūtras*. Naturally therefore we shall be dismayed if we hoped to visualise a comprehensive picture of the administrative machinery with all its intricacies, either in practice or in theory. But what we may justifiably expect and delight in expecting is this. The stories, as they flow on, give us details here and there, quite in an off-hand manner, thus very simply reflecting the normal life of the day—life true and sincere. It is of course needless to state that with such great and powerful kingdoms as Kāśī and Kosala must have existed a machinery of administrating the large kingdoms divided into villages and towns and cities : various activities of the state must have engaged a host of officers of whom only a few find the opportunity of appearing before us. Our attempt in the following pages will be to arrange this scrappy and isolated information in a systematic order, keeping our outlook broad so as to supplement the information whenever necessary from other sources.