Local Government in Ancient India c13.159

c13.159

A suitable administrative machinery seems to have been evolved for the systematic and regular exercise of royal interference in the affairs of the village. The central government seems to have had a special department for the purpose, what may be called the ‘Local Government Board’. The minister in charge of this board was called the Adhikārin, frequently mentioned in the inscriptions dealing with the royal grants of land, and affairs connected with the temple or the assembly. He seems to have been assisted in his work by the Senāpati. There was a regular procedure laid down for carrying the king’s decrees to the remote villages. The most usual occasion for such decrees was the grant of lands or villages to a temple or for any other public purpose, and there are numerous instances bearing on the subject which afford interesting information regarding the procedure followed in giving effect to the royal decree sanctioning such grants. The private grantor had first to submit a petition to the king specifying the grant he wished to make. Then the king passed his order. The order is written down to dictation by the private secretary (*rahasyādhikṛta*) in attendance on the king. Next the order is sent to the chief secretary who must signify his approval of it in writing. The order is then dispatched from the royal secretariat to the Local Government minister, the Adhikārin, who has now to take necessary steps to give effect to it. This means that the officer has to go in person to the locality where the land to be granted is situated, and serve the king’s decree upon the assembly in charge. The Adhikārin is generally accompanied by some local officers and assistants, among whom we find frequently figuring the Senāpati and the headman of the Nāḍu. The headman of the Nāḍu (a royal officer) would sometimes be alone deputed to accompany the members of the assembly for the purpose of ascertaining and verifying the stated boundaries of the village to be granted (see no. 73, *S. I. I.*, vol. II, part III). In one inscription it is stated that the king’s order communicated to the assembly is respectfully obeyed by the assembly by their placing it on their head, and then they proceed to take the necessary steps for executing it by marking out the plot with stones and milk-bush, and drawing up the necessary document. In this case the document was written by a goldsmith (see Vijaya-nṛpatuṅga-varman copper plate in *Ep. Ind.*, vol. IV). Sometimes the king’s order would be considered by the Mahāsabhā in a special meeting attended by all the members ‘without a vacancy’ in the court of the temple, and the meeting would pass the necessary resolutions while the king’s officer, the Adhikārin, deputed to serve that order, would be ‘walking about’ (so as not to interfere in the proceedings of the assembly). The entire procedure is very well described in no. 87 (*S. I. I.*, vol. III, part II) from which the following extract is made:—‘The donor (named) having submitted to us that the above request (namely a grant of land to the temple) might be sanctioned, we ordered that it should be done thus, and directed the revenue officers *to enter that land in the account book*’. On this order the private secretary writes:—‘Thus it should be caused to be done’. The order thus written and signed by the royal secretary was then copied by the assembly and signed with the further declaration: ‘Thus the king was pleased to order by word of mouth’. No. 65 (ibid.) states:—‘The following order was received with the signature of the royal secretary . . . . Accordingly the Adhikārin ordered:—“‘Let it be engraved on stone that those who shall cause injury to this charity will have disobeyed a royal order”’. In this particular instance, the order was issued by the king even while he was dining in his day-residence in a village where he had been probably on inspection.