Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.s2.2

c4.s2.2

THERE can be no doubt, that so extensive states like Kāsī and Koasla, Anga and Magadha, Assaka and Kalinga, with well-marked boundaries and distinctions, were divided into different administrative units, provinces or districts and villages. Though we, unfortunately, do not get much information about the provincial or district administrative arrangements, it is nevertheless conceivable that officials like the *rajjugāhaka-amaccas* or *rājukas*, with whom we have already become familiar, were provincial heads. It has been well-maintained¹ that the *Rājukas* or *lājukas* of the Asokan Inscriptions were provincial heads, their main functions being, presumably, survey, land settlements and irrigation. Though the term *mahāmatta* occurs several times in the *Jātakas*,² it is very difficult to say how far it corresponds with that occurring in the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya and the Asoka Inscriptions where, indeed, it has been taken to mean provincial official.³ Similarly is it doubtful whether the *yuttas* and the *purisas* appearing so often in these stories⁴ should have any affinity with the *yuktas* and the *puruṣas* of the Mauryan administrative system.⁵ It is certainly difficult to attach any technical significance to these general terms. Still we may be permitted to hold, that these were officials connected with the provinces or districts, but did not possess such wider and more distinct powers as their followers of the Mauryan days did. We may lastly note that there is even a suggestion to the fact that some kings appointed their princes as governors or viceroys over the provinces (*janapadas*) in their kingdoms,⁶ as was really the case in the Mauryan days.⁷