Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c11.56

c11.56

**Town Officers.** Megasthenes refers to the town official called *Astonomoi* as performing functions of which the details are given by Kauṭilya. Among these he mentions ‘Supervision of Factories’. Kauṭilya states that these factories in the cities represented the Cotton Industry, the industry of Spinning and Weaving, the manufacture of gold, silver and jewellery which was pre-eminently a city industry and also the working of metals other than gold and silver, the armament industry, the building industry, the state-mint, the manufacture of dairy-products and of forest-products. According to Megasthenes, the factories of the cities were under government ‘supervision.’ Kauṭilya describes how this supervision was exercised by the Government Superintendents in charge of these factories such as the *Sūtrādhyaksha*, the *Sauvarṇika*, the *Lohādhyaksha*; the *Lakshanādhyaksha*, the *Kupyādhyaksha* and the like.