Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t5.2

c4.t5.2

The next element of the Central administration was constituted by the ministers and the Council. It is rather disappointing to learn that the *Jātakas* do not give us any clear idea about the ministers, the Councillors, the assembly or the Court,—institutions which have played, since the dawn of history, a considerable part in the actual working of the administration of the State. There have been plenty of discussions and arguments, views and counter-views, as to the meaning and real significance of the *sabhā* and *samiti* of the Vedic times, or the *mantri pariṣad* of later days, and of the words *amātya* *mantrin* and *saciva* and even the so-called *Paurajānapada* bodies.⁴ All these leave not a shadow of doubt in our mind that howsoever it may have been in its real nature in different periods, there was some form of a State-Assembly whose members were called the ministers—variously termed according to their functions and portfolios which are, unfortunately, never so clearly stated.