The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.23

c14.23

In local government the ultimate unit was the village. Every village must have a headman. The successively higher areas of local government were formed by groups of ten, twenty, a hundred and a thousand villages. Every town must have "a superintendent of all affairs" with an army of spies to assist him in "exploring" the behaviour of the people. Local government, as a whole, should be placed in charge of a minister at the headquarters. A company of soldiers must be stationed "in the midst of two, three, five or hundreds of villages for the protection of the kingdom." Manu seems to prescribe salaries in land or in kind. The village headman is entitled to certain commodities such as food, drink and fuel which the villagers ought to furnish daily to the king. The head of ten villages is entitled to one kula of land, that is, as much as would suffice for the maintenance of one family; the ruler of twenty villages to five kulas; the lord of a hundred villages is to get a village in Jāgir as the medieval Indian rulers would have called it. The ruler of a thousand villages is entitled to the revenues of a town.² All this seems to have a basis in facts. There was no need to idealise here; in fact, the idealistic vein is altogether absent. There is a touch of realism in what Manu says of the need of supervising and controlling royal officials. Those, though appointed for the protection of the people, "generally become knaves" and seize the property of others. Evil-minded officials who were guilty of bribery must suffer the confiscation of their whole property and must be banished. Ministers or judges who were at fault in the discharge of their duties should be fined a thousand paṇas.¹