The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c12.81

c12.81

After the conquest of Kalinga in the ninth year of his reign, the empire of Aśoka comprised the whole of India except the extreme south ruled by the Coḍa; Pāṇḍya, Sātiyaputra and Keralaputra kings.¹ His edicts, primarily religious and moral, are unpolitical in character but they do indicate that the empire was not governed under a uniform system. Leaving out of account the independent territories mentioned in the edicts, it is possible to distinguish half-independent regions from the king's domains. To the former category, for instance, belong the Āndhras.² The regions lying along the frontiers of the empire seem to be autonomous and insecure. The king was particularly anxious to conciliate them. In the second separate Rock Edict Dhauli, he gives the assurance that "this alone is my wish with reference to the borderers . . . that they may not be afraid of me, but may have confidence (in me); that they may obtain only happiness from me, not misery; that they may (learn) this, that Devânâmpriya will forgive them what can be forgiven; that they may (be induced) by me (to) practise morality; (and) that they may attain (happiness in) this world and (in) the other world.” The prince-governor and Mahâmâtras of Tosali are repeatedly requested and commanded to set the hearts of the borderers at rest. Special officers, called Antamahâpâlas, had to be appointed to deal with frontiers-men. Even the mild emperor had sometimes to hold out threats to some forest tribes. So faint was the line between autonomy and independence that the frontiers-men within the empire are sometimes confused with those beyond and both are indiscriminately referred to as borderers.¹ In the heart of the empire, too, there seem to be some regions which had not been brought completely under Mauryan rule and which are called Âhâla in the Rûpnâth and Sârnâth edicts. The extreme rapidity with which the empire was built up and the equally striking rapidity with which it broke up point to a confederate rather than a unitary state. Kalinga, for instance, owned the sway of the Nanda rulers of Magadha but it soon became independent and had to be reconquered, after a most stubborn fight by Aśoka, only to regain complete independence in the second century B.C.² After its incorporation into the empire, a region might retain its identity, in large part its institutions and even its old dynasty in a subordinate capacity and might be able to throw off the imperial yoke at the first favourable opportunity.