Local Government in Ancient India c6.s1.10.2

c6.s1.10.2

But these material factors, though they go a great way, do not by themselves exhaust or constitute that assemblage of conditions which make the governance of empires of such colossal dimensions at all feasible. The fact is that for an adequate explanation of this puzzling phenomenon we have to look beyond the material and the objective, the physical and the natural, to the subjective and the spiritual aspects of the situation. Man's inventiveness is meant to triumph over the difficulties of his natural environment. And so the natural difficulties in the way of the Mauryan empire were solved by human statesmanship, by the application or evolution of a system of administration giving effect to an extensive decentralization and utmost latitude to the operations of local government, so that numerous autonomous centres were at work to cope with the administrative requirements of an extensive territory. This appropriate administrative machinery was not, however, be it understood, so much the creation of the new empire-builders—and Aśoka at least is very careful in distinguishing his *innovations* from his *inheritances*¹—as a legacy and a heritage handed down to them from older days.