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The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21: Chapter XVII. Conclusion

The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21

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English

Contents

Chapter XVII. Conclusion

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The close of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century A.D. saw the destruction of Hindu independence and the establishment of Musalmân rule over the greater part of North India. After another century the daring Khilji leader Alâ-ud-dîn planted the Muslim standard on the southern edge of the peninsula. The four or five centuries which follow may be designated ‘the Medieval Period’ of Indian history, in preference to ‘Mohammadan Period’ which term implies a serious underrating of the presence and strength of the Hindu elements all through. It may be admitted at once that the military strength of the Islamic dynasties was the dominating factor in Indian politics for five centuries but Hindu culture, literature, art and social life were never swept away. They received some influences from Islam but in their turn they exercised yet deeper influence on the higher life of the Muslims.¹ Nor did the influence of Hindu political ideas and institutions die out with the thirteenth or fourteenth century. There were regions where the Hindu administration survived, though in a modified form, while it was vital enough to affect the political arrangements of the Musalmâns all over the country.

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¹ For illustrations of this phenomenon, see Macauliffe, Sikh Religion, particularly Vol. VI. Beni Prasad, Introduction to Saṃkṣipta Sûra Sâgara (Hindi); Kabîr—a study, Tomorrow (Ahmedâbâd), 1922, pp. 521—40; Kabîr, his Song and his Mission, Ibid., 1923, pp. 41—47.

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South of the Kṛṣṇâ, the old Hindu life re-asserted itself soon after the first Muslim shock and resumed its cultural and political career under the ægis of the Vijayanagara Empire which lasted in vigour until the battle of Tâlikoṭa in 1565. There the old stream of Hindu political thought and institutions continued and developed into a new phase. The Vijayanagara empire was essentially a feudal-federal structure of the ancient Hindu type; the suzerains and feudatories used high-sounding titles as of old; the state regulated the economic life of the people; the courts patronised learning, poetry and art; the traditions of religious toleration were, as a rule, maintained.¹ Even after the fall of Vijayanagara, the Hindu system did not come to an end. Neither the Deccan Sulṭâns who had humbled Vijayanagara nor the great Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, before whom they went down in their turn in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, succeeded in establishing any stable Muslim administration in the south. Hindu principalities lingered on until they were engulfed in the currents and cross-currents of the Anglo-French struggle for supremacy in the south which terminated in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Certain features of their polity were adopted by the English East India Company whose dominion was established over nearly the whole of the present Madras Presidency by the close of the eighteenth century. Thus, as Krishnaswamy Aiyangar puts it, the administration of the great Choḷâs is, through the Vijayanagara Empire, the ancestor of the present Madras revenue and fiscal administration.

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¹ S. Krishnaswamy Aiyangar, Sources of Vijayanagar History; Contributions of South India to Indian Culture; South India and her Musalmân Invaders; R. Sewell, A Forgotten Empire; Major, India in the Fifteenth Century. The inscriptions of the period are given in Epigraphia Indica, Epigraphia Carnatica, Madras Government Epigraphist's Reports, South Indian Inscriptions.

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Further north, the Koṅkan, the narrow strip of land between the Western Ghats and the sea retained its autonomy throughout the medieval period. The Marāṭhās whose homeland it formed were indeed deeply influenced by their contact with the Deccan Sulṭāns, particularly, by the Niẓāmśāhi court of Aḥmadnagar, where they played the game of high politics with skill and dexterity. Through the Sultanates the Marāṭhās also received ideas and suggestions from the Mughals whose impact roused their energies in the seventeenth century A.D.¹ Nevertheless, the new Marāṭhā State which reared its head in the latter half of the seventeenth century and which, within two generations, developed into an empire, reproduced certain features of ancient Hindu polity. The coronation of Śivājī, the founder of the Marāṭhā power, which symbolised the emergence of a new factor of first-rate importance in Indian politics, was performed at Rāigaḍh in 1674 A.D. in studiously orthodox Brahmanic style. The administrative system of the Marāṭhās represented a fusion of Hindu and Musalmān elements. The number of the Aṣṭapradhāna or Council of Eight which Śivājī instituted reminds one of the Mahābhārata and Manusmṛiti. The Council of Bārbhāis or Twelve Brothers which emerged later and which was destined to be set aside by Nānā Fadnavis, also carries the mind to ancient India. The designations of some of the officers—Amātya, Mantrī, Saciva, Senāpati—were borrowed from old Hindu practice.

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The numerous Lekhakas formed the counterpart of Kāyasthas.² The eighteen Kārkhānās, and twelve Mahâls, altogether thirty departments which Śivâji organised, were designed, of course, primarily to meet the exigencies of the situation. But naturally they were based partly on old Marâṭhâ practice and on contemporary institutions in other parts of India. Their description in the Marâṭhâ chronicles reminds one as much of Abul Fazl’s Âin-i-Akbarī, the astounding Imperial Gazetteer of the Mughal Empire as of the Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra and the inscriptions which lie between the Gupta period and the last age of ancient India. They included Treasury, Cash, Jewellery, Harem, Agriculture, Liquor, Chariots, Mints, etc.¹ In the domain of local government the designation of the Marâṭhâ village officer, the Pâṭil, corresponded to the Paṭṭakila of the inscriptions which, in its turn, was akin to the Akṣapaṭalika or Mahâkṣapaṭalika which occurs so frequently in ancient epigraphic records. The Pâṭil answered also to the ancient Grâmâdhipati and, like him, performed some police, judicial and fiscal duties. The other Marâṭhâ village officer, Kulakarṇi, is reminiscent of the ancient Karaṇika. The dues levied from the people again recall the ancient inscriptions and are, in fact, more numerous than those mentioned in any single inscription of old. A list of twenty-two of them has been compiled from a Marâṭhī deed of sale.

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Besides the usual land revenue, they include a bundle of fuel, a quantity of grain, and twenty-five bundles of jawâr sticks from each cultivator, nine ṭakas of oil from each oil-mill, thirteen leaves per day from each seller of betel leaves, one goat from each herd on the Daśerâ (Vijayadaśamī) day, one piece of cloth per loom per year from all classes of weavers, half a cocoanut from every marriage-negotiation, every ordinary marriage as well as every widow-remarriage, some vegetables from vegetable-growers, usual tolls from each seller in the market and every petty trader's stall, the seer per bag of grocery from a grocer's shop, etc., etc. These payments in kind went to support the local officials as in ancient times. In spite of all their weaknesses, the Marâthâ rulers were, like the kings and statesmen of old, often conscious of high ideals. "Propagate the Dharma of Mahârâṣṭra," said Râmadâsa, the preceptor of Śivâji to the latter's son Sambhâji.¹ The Marâthâ regime was the Augustan age of Marâṭhi literature and was equally remarkable for the intense cultivation of Sanskrit learning. The Marâthâ rulers covered the country with temples and images, forts and palaces, tanks and anicuts, many of which still survive intact or in ruins. Their charity halls were almost innumerable. Religious toleration was the rule in Mahârâṣṭra. In all this the Marâthâs were in line with the ancient Hindu tradition. They were in line with it also at some weak points.

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The administrative organisation was not rigid enough. The Marâthâ empire of the eighteenth century was a mere confederacy. The Gâekwâḍ of Baroḍâ, Sindhiâ of Gwâlior, Holkar of Indore and the Bhonslâ of Nâgpur recognised the hegemony of the *de facto* king, Peśwâ of Pooṇâ, or the *de jure* monarch, the Râja of Satârâ, in a very rough and ready fashion. They would sometimes rally to his standard and sometimes war with him. Sometimes they would fight among themselves and sometimes band together against the common foe. With obvious differences of setting and detail, they acted the political drama of ancient India on the stage of the eighteenth century.

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¹ On Marāṭhā History, Grant Duff, History of the Mahrattas; Kincaid and Parasnis, History of the Marāṭhā People; Ranade, Rise of the Marāṭhā Power; J. N. Sarkar, Śivājī and his Times; G. S. Sardesai, Marāṭhī Riyāsat (Marāṭhī) and Main Currents of Marāṭhā History.

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² Chiṭṇis, p. 168.

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¹ Sabhâsad, pp. 94-95.

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¹ For the political reflections of Râmadâsa (1608–82 A.D.), see his Marâṭhi Classic, Dâsabodha, Daśaka X, Samâsa 6; XII, 10; XIV, 6; XV, 3; XVI, 10; XIX, 6, etc.

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Even in the North where, thanks to the continuous influx from the North-west, Muslim influence was much deeper and more extensive, there were a few small tracts and one large area which retained their autonomy for long. In the North, There Hindu institutions survived, of course, in a modified form. The subject is too vast to be treated here in detail but a few instances from a late period may be given to illustrate the persistence of the Hindu system. As late as the seventeenth century A.D., Khurdâ, a small, rather primitive district on the borders of Orissa and Golkuṇḍâ, modelled its army on the Hindu system which had become antiquated by that time.¹ In the seventeenth century, again, the small state of Kiṣṭwâḍ to the south of Kashmir, close to the Puñjâb border, had a fiscal system which bore some affinity to that of the Hindus. Every customer had to pay four rupees per two seers of saffron purchased. Fines, always heavy and particularly severe in the case of rich folk, formed the greatest source of the public income.² The annals of Kâṅgṛâ in the north-eastern Puñjâb, which, in spite of 52 sieges did not surrender to Musalmânas until 1620 A.D., disclose the old Hindu feudal-federalism in full force. The ‘zemindârs,’ as the Hindu chiefs are called by Muslim historians, stood in relations of suzerainty and vassalage to one another.³ The Bâra Bhuñyas or Twelve Landholders who exercised sway in some Bengal tracts in a semi-independent capacity after the Muslim conquest and who created trouble for Muslim rulers until the seventeenth century, also organised themselves, rather loosely, after the traditional Hindu system.¹

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¹ Bahâristân-i-Ghaibî, Paris Ms., summarised by J. N. Sarkar, J. B. O. R. S., II, Part I, pp. 53–56. Jahângîrnâmâ (ed. Rogers, tr. Beveridge), I, 433.

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² Motamad Khân, Iqbâlnâmâ, pp. 143–46; Jahângîrnâmâ (Rogers and Beveridge), II, 137–39; Shâh Nawâz Khân, Maâsir-ul-umarâ (tr. Beveridge), I, 490.

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³ Jahângîrnâmâ (R. and B.), II, 184; Fath Kâṅgṛâ in Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, VI, 526. See also Elliot and Dowson, II, 34, 444-45; III, 405–7, 515, 570; IV, 67, 415, 455.

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¹ James Wise, J. A. S. B., 1874, pp. 194—214; Ibid., 1875, pp. 181—83; Beveridge, J. A. S.B., 1904, pp. 57—63; Hosten, J. A. S. B., 1913, pp. 437—49. The Bengalî works, Pratâpâditya by Nikhil Nath Roy and ‘The Life of Pratâpâditya, the last Hindu King of Bengal’ by Satya Charan Sâstri give the traditions which cluster round the figure of the leader of the Bâra Bhuñyas. See also two other Bengalî works, ‘History of Murshidâbâd’ by Nikhil Nath Roy and ‘History of Bengal’ by R. D. Banerji.

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It is, however, Râjpûtânâ which furnishes the most striking example of the survival of Hindu institutions in the North. Here the Râjpûts established themselves after they had been driven out of the Gangetic plains. Though forced to acknowledge Muslim suzerainty from time to time, the Râjpût States, with the exception of Ajmer, the *point d'appui*, were never annexed to Muslim empire. In the eighteenth century and early years of the nineteenth, the Marâthâs harassed the Râjpûts but did not extinguish their autonomy. In modern times the British Government has left them pretty much to themselves. The old institutions were certainly modified by three factors—the presence of a large aboriginal population, constant pressure from outside and the example of Muslim organisation. Nevertheless, before modern influences and, particularly, the modern means of communication, warfare and industrial organisation affected Râjpûtânâ, its institutions resembled those of ancient India in many points. In Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Râjasthân, supplemented by more recent additions to our knowledge, Râjpûtânâ appears in some respects as a miniature edition of ancient India.² The small size of the state, internecine warfare, relationships of suzerainty and vassalage, constant attempts to throw off the yoke—all this carries the mind to the ancient age.

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In Râjpûtânâ there were gradations of feudal chieftains, in some places, four in successive order.¹ Here, too, vassals were sometimes associated in the administration of the suzerain's territory.² Suzerains and feudatories alike had big harems which, as in ancient India, sometimes reacted dangerously on the politics of the state. A state was parcelled out into a number of districts. In certain tracts a district comprised generally from fifty to one hundred townships and villages, though the proportion was sometimes exceeded. Many of these divisions were called Caurâsis—'eighty fours'—collections of 'eighty-four' villages, an expression which reminds one of Central Indian and Southern administrative jargon. Caurâsi, however, is like eighteen, a sort of sacred number among the Hindus. It only indicates that the average number of villages in such a district would range from somewhere about seventy-five to somewhere about a hundred. The chief officer of the district performed both civil and judicial functions. There was also another officer charged with military, fiscal and some judicial duties. The judicial procedure reminds one of ancient India. A town or a village had a Cabûtrarâ or court where the headman or the judicial officer, assisted by some inhabitants of the locality, marked out by public opinion for indefinite periods, administered justice.³ Taxes and tolls were numerous as in ancient India.

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Besides the land revenue and customs, we read of Ganim-burrâr, war-tax, corresponding perhaps to the Turuşkadaṇḍa of the eleventh and twelfth centuries A.D., Ghar-burrâr, house-tax, Hal-burrâr, plough-tax, Neotâ-burrâr, marriage-tax.⁴ There were various other imposts in different regions, such as those on sales.¹ As in ancient days there were special frontier-officers always appointed from the headquarters and corresponding to the Antapâlas of literature and the inscriptions.² At the top of the administration stood a few ministers, often four in number, generally headed by a Pradhâna or chief minister who, needless to say, was responsible to the Râja.³ As in ancient days again, government servants, high and low alike, were not infrequently hereditary. Payments were often made in grants of land which, along with the hereditary transmission of office, must have accentuated feudalism. There were numerous court and household officers who held large grants of land. As in antiquity there were titles and other insignia of dignity such as standards, kettledrums, heralds.⁴ Râjpût magnates followed the ancient tradition of making grants to poets, scholars, priests, or favourites and remitting the whole or part of the revenues. The state sometimes concerned itself with minute affairs of life. Thus, it was once enacted that none shall attempt to carry anything away from the public feast.

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A Jaina obtained a charter to the effect that none shall eat after sunset.⁵ It may be added that custom and usage regulated the rights and tenures of land and public affairs in general in Râjpûtânâ as in ancient India.⁶

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² Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Râjasthân (Routledge and Sons); Kavirâja Shyamal Das, Vira Vinoda (Hindî); Gauri Shankar Hirachand Ojha, Râjasthâna (Hindî); Naiyasîkhyât, a valuable original work, pub. 1925; Tessitori, Historical and Bardic Survey of Râjpûtânâ.

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¹ Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Râjasthân (ed. Routledge), I, p. 117.

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² Ibid., I, 116.

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³ Ibid., I, 119-20.

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⁴ Ibid., I, 118, 119.

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¹ Ibid., I, 111. ² Ibid., I, 116. ³ Ibid., I, 119. ⁴ Ibid., I, 115, 116. ⁵ Ibid., I, 111. ⁶ Ibid., I, 110; on feudal incidents, Ibid., I, Ch. III, pp. 128—41.

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The fundamental political conditions of Râjpûtânâ are well reflected in the great Hindi epic Prithvirâjarâso which, though ascribed by tradition to Candabardâi, the bard of Prithvirâja Cauhâna, the renowned, though ultimately unsuccessful, champion of Hindu India against Muhammad

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Evidence of Literature.

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Ghori in the 12th century A.D., is really a collection of bardic lays composed in Dingal Hindi, the peculiar mixed idiom of heroic poetry, by various minstrels through several centuries in medieval Râjpûtânâ. Some passages are as late as the seventeenth century A.D.¹ Râjas, Sâmantas, aristocrats abound throughout the Râso. Its feudalism is sometimes several layers deep. The government which is mirrored in its pages has fallen from the ancient cultural standards but its structure, while certainly less elaborate, follows the old pattern. The conclusions to which the study of the Râso leads are amply supported by other Râjpût compositions of a similar type which are preserved in Mss. in palace libraries and private collections, particularly in Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, and Bûndi. The prefaces or conclusions of many ordinary Hindi and Sanskrit books which were written or copied in the latter half of the sixteenth or in the seventeenth century and which may be read in Mss. in various collections in the modern state of Jaipur bring out one very interesting fact. At the commencement or at the end they glorify Râjâ Mân Singh who, as a vassal of the Mughal emperors Akbar and Jahângir, ruled his hereditary patrimony of Âmer (Amber or modern Jaipur) and also occupied one of the very highest positions in the service of his suzerain. He governed an important imperial province like Bengal. He commanded imperial armies on momentous expeditions, even against the Râjpût state of Chittor or modern Udaipur. In the notices of Jaipur Mss. his campaigns are represented as a Digvijaya and celebrated as the conquest of the whole world or the whole of India. Yet he was only a feudatory and an imperial officer. Once again the Hindu mind failed to grasp firmly the distinction between autonomy and independence. It may be added that the career of Mân Singh was by no means unique in the annals of medieval India. Other Râjpût princes like Bhagvân Dâs, Sarbuland Râi, Jaswant Singh, Jai Singh, while governing their own territories, managed to play a high role in imperial politics and to rank in the highest grade of imperial officers—Mansabdârs as they were called. The conclusions on feudalism in Râjpûtânâ hold good of Central India as the genealogies, bardic lays and notices in general books, preserved in Ms. collections in central India, particularly in the palace library of Chhatarpur, prove. Of all this we can be perfectly sure, thanks to the contemporary Persian chronicles. Similar seems to have been the position of vassals in ancient India as indicated by the inscriptions. Like the Râjpût princes of medieval India, they received titles, commands and governorships from the suzerain and at the same time generally ruled their own territories as autonomous princes. If the ancient Hindus had cared to write their history, the statements and indications to this effect in the inscriptions and in Yuan Chwang might have been borne out in ample detail.¹

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¹ The work has been edited and published by the Kâsî Nâgarî Pracârinî Sabhâ, Benâres and the Nâgarî Pracârinî Sabhâ, Ârrâh. For criticism, Misra Brothers, Misra Bandhu Vinoda, I, pp. 227-36; Hindî Navaratna, Ch. I; Kavirâja Shyamal Das, J.A.S.B., 1886, Pt. I, pp. 5-65. In reply to the last, Mohan Lal Vishnu Lal Pandya, A Defence of Prithvîrâja Râso, Benâres, 1887.

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¹ For the careers of Râjpût princes in Mughal service, see Abul Fazl, Akbarnâmâ, Jahângîrnâmâ, Motamad Khân, Iqbâlnâmâ, Kâmgar Husainî, Maâsir-i-Jahângîrî (Khudâ-Bakhsh Ms.), Abdul Hamîd Lâhorî, Pâdshâh-nâmâ, Shâh Nawaz Khân, Maâsir-ul-umarâ.

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It is not merely the Hindu principalities of Medieval India which testify to the persistence of the Hindu administrative tradition. Hindu influence is perceptible on the systems of Muslim administration which prevailed over the greater part of the country from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century and lasted far into

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Influence of the Hindu on Muslim administration.

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the eighteenth. It may be admitted at once that both the so-called Pathân administration (13th—15th century A.D.) and the Mughal administration (16th—18th century A.D.) hit upon devices of their own to meet the circumstances of the times. Then there was the law of the Qurân and Hadis, binding on the whole body of the Faithful, to exercise a deep influence on Muslim politics in India as elsewhere. There is again enough evidence to show that the institutions of Musalmâns in India were affected by the political ideas and practices of the western Muslim countries particularly by the example of the courts of Baghdâd and Cairo and, from the sixteenth century onwards, by Persia, the glory and mistress of the Muslim world. Nevertheless in several important branches the Muslim administration in India largely retained the old practices. Throughout the medieval period the ancient revenue and fiscal arrangements lasted in India. The Muslims simply took over the old fiscal divisions, the old fiscal system and the old classes of officers. For long they did not directly collect the taxes but employed for the purpose agencies which adhered to the old methods. Many of the old divisions and sub-divisions of ordinary local administration were retained. They all appear in the Âin-i-Akbarî, the great imperial gazetteer compiled by the Allâmî Abul Fazl in the reign of Akbar towards the close of the sixteenth century. The Âin, supplemented by Persian chronicles, shows that under the pressure of tradition and environment the Muslim administration was reproducing some of the old conditions. Certain Âin descriptions of even unimportant matters like the imperial harem,¹ ensigns of royalty, *inter alia*, musical instruments,² division and sub-division of precious stones,³ specific gravity,⁴ remind one of the

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¹ Âin-i-Akbarî, Âin, 15.

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² Ibid., Âin, 19.

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³ Ibid., Âin, 3.

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⁴ Ibid., Âin, 14.

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Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra. In the sixteenth century A.D. when the Muslim state in India, after three centuries of unsettlement, had caught up with antiquity, some of the prominent features of Hindu administration re-appeared. Survey and record of land, administrative sub-divisions, ubiquitous espionage, regular secretariats, pomp and glory of the court—all resembled the Hindu system. What was even more important, the regime of Sher Shāh and, following it, the Mughal empire revived the tradition of religious toleration, religious discussion and patronage of learning.¹ The Persian chroniclers have preserved long lists of the literate whom the generosity of the Mughal court raised above want, even to affluence.² As one studies the biographies of contemporary Hindi poets, one is struck by the large number of those who received the patronage of Muslim courts. In the lives of some of them, the only certain fact is that they visited the Mughal court at some time.³ Such was the force of the ancient tradition that the Mughal state could not lose sight of Sanskrit in its effort to encourage and guide education. One of the regulations recorded by Abul Fazl lays down that " in studying Sanskrit students ought to learn the Bayakaran (Vyâkaraṇa), Niyai (Nyâya), Bedânta (Vedânta) and Patañjal (Patañjali).¹ Once again, the state, in spite of its predominantly non-Hindu character, made an effort to regulate social life, though in a different manner. Akbar sought to abolish Satî or widow-burning and compulsory widowhood and to discourage child-marriage and polygamy.² Jahângîr forbade a new peculiar form of Satî prevalent among Hindu converts to Islâm who buried their widows with their husbands.³ He interdicted the practice of intermarriage between Hindus and Musalmâns prevalent in some hill-tracts.⁴ Another point at which the Muslim state now linked itself with antiquity was philanthropic activity. For instance, following the example of Akbar, Jahângîr commanded the erection of rest-houses and mosques, schools and hospitals and the appointment of physicians in big towns at the expense of the state.⁵ The Muslim sovereigns made numerous grants of land to poets, priests, scholars, and favourites The farmâns as they were called, have exactly the same significance as the Sanskrit Śāsana which used to denote grants in ancient India. In form some of the Muslim farmâns bear an astounding resemblance to Hindu

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¹ Ābul Fazl, Āīn-i-Akbarī, Akbarnāmā, Father Anthony Monserrate, Mongolicae Legationes Commentarius, ed. Hosten, Asiatic Society of Bengal Memoir, III, No. 9, pp. 508-704, with translation of important passages. Another translation and notes by J. S. Hoyland and S. N Banerji. Father Pierre Du Jarric of Toulouse, Histoire des Choses plus memorables, etc, or Thesaurus Rerum Indicarum, etc. E. D. Maclagan, Jesuit Missions to the Court of Akbar, J. A. S. B., Part I, Vol. LXV, 1896, pp. 38-113. Sir Thomas Roe, Embassy to India, ed. Foster, p. 314; Edward Terry in Purchas His Pilgrims, IX, p. 52; Della Valle, Travels, I, 30, 120-29.

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² For the reign of Akbar (1556-1605), Āīn-i-Akbarī; for that of Jahāngīr, Jahāngīrnāmā, (R. and B.), I, 46; II, 257, 345; Motamad Khān, Iqbalnāmā, 308; Mohammad Hādī, p. 20; for the reign of Shāh Jahān (1627-1658), Abdul Hamīd Lāhorī, Pādshāhnāmā.

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³ Reports on the Search for Hindī Mss. Kāśī Nāgarī Pracāriṇī Sabhā; Saṅgar, Śiva Singh Saroja, Miśra Brothers, Miśra Bandhu Vinoda, Vols. I and II; Beni Prasad, A Few Aspects of Education and Literature under the Great Mughals, Proceedings of the Fifth Meeting of the Indian Historical Records Commission, pp. 44-56.

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¹ Âîn-i-Akbarî, tr. Blochmann, pp. 278-79.

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² Al Badâûnî, Muntakhab-ut-tawârîkh, II, tr. Lowe, p. 367.

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³ Jahângîrnâmâ (R. and B.), II, 181.

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⁴ Ibid.

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⁵ Âîn-i-Akbarî. Jahângîrnâmâ (R. and B.), I, Regulations Nos. 2, 10, pp. 8-9. Alî Muhammad Khân, Mirat-i-Ahmadî, I, 209; Khafî Khân, Muntakhab-ul-lubâb, I. 249. For some minor reforms, Jahângîrnâmâ (R. and B), I, 8, 370-71; II, 150, 151, 168. For the management of a typical rest-house at Ahmedâbâd, P. Della Valle, Travels, I, 95-96, 67. For a typical instance of imperial charity, Jahângîrnâmâ (R. and B.), I, 440.

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Tâmrapatras. Thus a Persian farmân of the emperor Jahângîr largely follows the Hindu Sanskrit style of composition.¹ It will be too much to claim that the Musalmâns borrowed all such practices and ideas from Hindus. But apart from a *priori* considerations, a comparison of the Hindu and Muslim administrative systems of the country shows that the latter, in spite of undoubtedly foreign influences in its make-up, steadily approached the old model and derived suggestions from its ever-living tradition in some tracts. In the day-to-day administrative routine, the employment of the same class of Hindu servants under Muslim rule would tend to the perpetuation of old practices. Throughout the Persian chronicles it is the Hindu Kâyasthas on whom the brunt of inferior official work falls. It will be remembered that in the post-Vardhan inscriptions, Smritis, Kalhaṇa's Râjatarangiṇi and elsewhere the same term is used to designate secretaries, clerks and petty officials in general. By the close of the ancient age the Kâyasthas had formed a class or rather a set of local classes throughout the north of India and in some parts of Gujarât and the Deccan. It is these officers who passed, almost *en bloc*, to service under Muhammadans. They retained their old designation but they exchanged the study of Sanskrit for that of Persian. They retained their Brahmanic faith but, thanks to their environment, they were influenced by Muhammadans in matters of dress, diet, manners and culture. The Kâyastha classes now developed into a caste or rather a number of sub-castes. But whatever the social or cultural transformations which they underwent, the Kâyasthas faithfully handed down and preserved the administrative tradition which their forefathers had fashioned.¹ At the lowest rung of the ladder the village officers were always drawn from the old classes. This personal element formed an important factor in the transmission of Hindu administrative practices.

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¹ Jahângîr's farmân is reproduced in J. B. B. R. A. S., 1920-21, pp. 419 et seq.

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¹ Besides the inscriptions and works referred to in the foregoing chapters, some facts and traditions about Kâyasthas are given in Brâhmanotpattimârtanda which forms part of Brihajjyoti-sârnava and in Jwala Prasad Miśra’s Jâti Bhâskara (Venkatéśvara Press, Bombay). The Kâyasthas who continued to serve the surviving Hindu principalities retained their orthodox manners on which their descendants still pride themselves.

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One of the most obscure topics of Indo-Muslim administration is that of rural justice. It is clear that there were Muslim judicial officers, Qâzîs and Mir Adls in towns but neither the Persian chronicles nor the Persian Dastûr-ul-amals, manuals of official regulations and procedure, nor the contemporary European accounts nor general literary works reveal the practices of civil adjudication in villages. The silence of our authorities, which are generally so full and detailed, indicates that the vast mass of Hindu population on the countryside was left to settle civil suits by itself according to time-honoured law and custom. This was probably one of the spheres in which old Hindu practice survived for long even outside the territories of Hindu feudatories. It would be particularly strong in tracts which, in spite of direct Muslim rule, managed largely to escape, Muslim influence. The hypothesis is borne out by the recent discovery of a Sanskrit judgment in Mithilâ.

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Mithilâ in north Bihâr still forms a centre of Sanskrit learning and Brâhmanic orthodoxy. Throughout the middle ages it retained its cultural autonomy and, partly, its freedom of administrative and juridical practice. Its Hindu landowners were recognised by Muslim sovereigns and suffered to stick to old ways. This state of things survived the break-up of the Muslim power and lasted until the close of the eighteenth century when the East India Company had established its sway all over the lower Gangetic valley. The date on the Sanskrit Jayapatra, as a judgment was called, is equivalent to the 10th of June, 1794 A.D. As the only available document of its kind the Jayapatra deserves notice in some detail. It comes from the village of Dharmapur which had long been held by Hindus under a Muslim imperial grant. The judgment is given and signed by Sacala Miśra who is evidently the Prāḍvivākā or chief justice referred to in the course of the document. It begins by mentioning the names of the parties and then gives the case of the plaintiff as stated in his plaint. Next the nature and substance of the defendant's answer are recapitulated. There follows a discussion as to the party on whom the burden of proof lay. The issues are determined and summarised. Next adjournments are dealt with. The plaintiff having made default, the fact that proceedings thereafter are in retrial is noted. Once the defendant objected that on principles of the Hindu law of evidence a single witness to prove a case was inadmissible The plaintiff prays for leave to resort to the mode of proof extraordinary, or non-secular, that is, by ordeal. To this the defendant objects and cites authority in support of his contention. The judge quotes and discusses legal digests and arrives at the conclusion that the ordeal was inapplicable to the case in question. The judge and Pāṣat members refuse the request preferred by the plaintiff. Ultimately, the plaintiff is adjudged to have failed in establishing the claim preferred.¹ It is possible that old Hindu judgments were written in something like this form and that something like the procedure indicated here was followed in ancient Mithilâ.

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¹ Jayaswal, J. B. O. R. S., March, 1920, Vol. VI, Part I, pp. 246 - 58. See also Gaṅgā Nātha Jhā, Ibid., 1921, pp. 121-2. Cf. Jolly, Ibid., 117 - 20, a Javanese Jayapatra. For the Hindu view of the nature of a judgment, Bṛhaspati in Parāśaramādhava, p. 150.

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The survival of Hindu administrative practices in Medieval India had its counterpart in theory. Now, however, Hindu theory kept at a distance from facts but it could never lose sight of them completely. Sanskrit literature, which did not die out with the loss of Hindu independence, now concerned itself less and less with politics until it ceased to care for it at all. Though concerned primarily with literary form, commenting and explaining of old matter, custom and usage, it produced a few works which belong to the old tradition of Hindu social and political thought. The most important of them was Śukranitisāra the bulk of which was composed probably about the thirteenth century, and which, in its present shape, includes some matter as late as the 16th or even the 17th century A.D.¹ Conscious, perhaps, that he had appeared on the scene rather late, the author of Śukraniti is at pains to connect his handiwork with hoary antiquity.² He touches on all topics of government, embellishing and improving on all the details.

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¹ Śukranīti was edited by Gustav Oppert, Madras, 1882. The editor (Introduction, p. VIII) ascribed it to the 4th century A.D., but besides other difficulties, this hypothesis supposes the existence of guns and gunpowder in ancient India. In support of Oppert's view, see B. K. Sarkar, Positive Background of Hindu Sociology. Book II, Part I, pp. 63—71. K. P. Jayaswal places the work in the 8th century A.D. Rājendra Lāla Mitra perceived long ago that the Śukranīti could not be older than the 16th century A.D.

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² Śukranīti, tr. B. K. Sarkar, pp. 1, 2, 4.

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There is one passage in Śukra which is peculiarly valuable for the organisation of the last age of ancient India and its medieval survivals. On the basis of annual income the author divides rulers into various grades as follows :—

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| Designation. | | | Annual Revenue in Karṣas. |
| Sāmanta | ... | ... | 1 lac to 3 lacs |
| Māṇḍalika | ... | ... | 3 lacs to 10 lacs. |
| Rāja .. | .. | ... | 10 lacs to 20 lacs. |
| Mahārāja | .. | ... | 20 lacs to 50 lacs. |
| Svarāṭ .. | .. | ... | 50 lacs to 100 lacs. |
| Samrāṭ | ... | ... | 1 crore to 10 crores. |
| Virāṭ .. | ... | ... | 10 crores to 50 crores. |
| Sārvabhauma | .. | ... | Universal Monarchy.¹ |

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¹ Ibid., pp. 36-37.

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On the very face of it the scheme is theoretical. Elsewhere Śukra applies some of these designations to government officers who were placed in charge of districts of various sizes.² Taken together, the passages imply that federal-feudalism was the order of the day and that vassals were often employed in high positions under the sovereign. Śukra advocates tighter control on feudatories than his predecessors in political theory had contemplated. They must be closely watched and, if they misbehaved, might be deposed or pensioned off.³

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² Ibid., 25, 27, 269.

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³ Ibid., 47-48, also 52.

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For the succession, the royal council, the chief officers, and other government employees, Ibid., 25, 27, 54-89, 97-8, 100-101, 269.

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On the court, its seating arrangements and etiquette, Ibid., 48-51. On royal supervision over the administration, 40, 46, 51-2, 269. On the capital and council-chamber, 27-35. On communications, 34-5, 43, 184-5, 189-91, 192, 194-206, 209, 211, 213-14, 217-19, 255-56, rest-houses, 35-36. On law, justice and procedure, 134-35, 183-209. On revenue, 138, 140, 89. On expenditure, 43-4. On foreign policy, 130, 261.

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The seventeenth century works like Mitra Miśra’s Vīramitrodaya and Nīlakaṇṭha’s Nītimayūkha discuss politics on old lines and here and there give a new turn to political ideas. But they throw no fresh light on institutions. The same remark applies to the bulky legal work, the Nṛsiṃhaprasāda of Dalapati, minister of In one essential matter, the Indo-Muslim state of the Middle Ages marks a great departure from ancient practice.

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A Profound Change. It struck at the root of feudal-federalism and inaugurated the era of the unitary state. It is true that many Hindu principalities were allowed to subsist for long as autonomous vassals. Again, a close study of medieval India shows, what scholars have generally failed to notice, that certain epochs and regions witnessed a sort of feudalism among Musalınâns themselves. In the last years of the fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth, the Lodis whose dominion comprised the major part of North India, never understood the meaning of a unitary state and persisted in a sort of clan-feudalism which their ancestors on the north-western frontier had evolved. Much later in the eighteenth century, the Rohillâs who dominated the north of the present United Provinces reproduced a similar type of feudalism. Nevertheless, when all allowance has been made for such exceptions, the fact remains that the Muslim state was predominantly a unitary one. The Muslim conquerors destroyed one Hindu dynasty after another, annexed its

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the Nizâmshahî ruler of Ahmednagar in the sixteenth century. Legal digests like those of Jîmûtavâhana (15th or 16th century A.D.) rarely touch administration proper. Medieval vernacular literature in the North rarely touches politics. The Bundeloñ kî Vamśâvalî (Chhatarpur Ms.) is one of the few exceptions. For a detailed notice, Beni Prasad, Journal of the U. P. Historical Society, 1922. For slight political touches in Sûra Dâsa, the greatest of Medieval lyricists, Sûra Sâgara, IX, 170; X, 160, 221, 1008, 2377, 2503, 2505, 2507, 2569. Similarly for Tulasî Dâsa, the greatest of Hindî poets, Râmacarita-mânasa (Indian Press, Allâhâbâd edition, pp. 233, 270-71, 338, 373, 392, 399). Krittivâsa's Bengalî version of the Râmâyaṇa is no better. Southern literature is much more useful for politics. For instance, the Telugu classic attributed to King Kṛiṣṇadeva Râya (1509—30 A.D.) has a number of political maxims with a bearing on practice For a summary, Raṅgaswâmî Saraswatî, Journal of Indian History, January, 1926, pp. 64—77.

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dominions and, for the most part, ruled them as their own. The conclusions of wars among Muslim rulers themselves meant, so far as possible, direct, downright annexation and the extermination of the defeated royal houses. Here Muslim policy was an antithesis of the Hindu tradition. As a result, the Musalmâns gave a tremendous impetus to the process of the political unification of India. The tendency, at its strongest, is represented by the Mughal empire which was founded by Bâbur in 1526 and which, with a short interregnum under Humâyûn, flourished in vigour until the death of Aurangzeb in 1707. It effectively united the north under one sceptre and for a time brought nearly the whole of the Deccan and the south under the same dominion, free from the presence of any feudatories in recently conquered territories. It is in matters other than the fundamentals of organisation that the Muslim state displays Hindu influence.

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The Hindu administrative system which flourished until the 12th or 13th century A.D., and which left its influence behind to last for many generations was almost entirely free from foreign influence in historical times. The recent discoveries made by the Archæological Department at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa reveal a pre-Âryan culture which bears a striking resemblance to that of Anon, Sura, Babylon and Crete, but the fact of borrowing on one side or the other has yet to be established. No administrative interaction of any kind is perceptible. It is impossible to form an idea of the pre-Âryan institutions of North India. It is probable that such as existed before the Âryan immigration were not obliterated but assimilated into the Âryan system. Indeed, on a *priori* grounds it may be argued that the older institutions, being the natural growth of climatic conditions and economic environment, would gradually grip the Âryans. As we have seen, there is an indication in Vedic

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The indigenous origin of institutions.

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literature¹ that the development of the Âryan kingship owed something to the example of the aborigines. But after this possible fusion of Âryan and aboriginal institutions had been completed, there was, in historical times, little outside influence forthcoming to give a different turn to Hindu political development. There was, for instance, no such metamorphosis of the organs of governance in ancient India as came over Anglo-Saxon institutions with the Norman Conquest. Scholars now agree that general Greek influence on India was neither so deep nor so far-reaching as was once, almost naturally, supposed. Even in the case of the Hindu theatre the fact of the Greek influence, so strongly argued for by Weber,² has been denied by later writers.³ The latest surveyor of the Sanskrit Drama thus sums up the situation: “We cannot assuredly deny the possibility of Greek influence, in the sense that Weber admitted the probability; the drama or the mime, may, as played at Greek courts, have aided in the development of a true drama, but the evidence leaves only a negative answer to the search for positive signs of influence.”⁴ Greek influence on the art of Gandhâra is generally admitted but its extent is still a matter of controversy. Nor is the ground any surer in regard to philosophy. The new spirit which appeared in Buddhism about the first century B.C. has been traced by Sylvain Lévi to Hellenic influences, but here, as elsewhere, the evidence is very scanty.

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The fact remains that the growth of ideas and cultural styles in India can be adequately explained on the basis of Indian causes. On Hindu political theory Greek influence is conspicuous by its absence. Nowhere in the entire range of that speculation is there any such break or new turn as the impact of the virile, profound political philosophy of Greece would tend to produce. The little development which Hindu political thought displays is fully explicable on variations in the degree of secularity in different groups of compositions, on the rise of new creeds which necessitated a re-statement of the political theory attached to old religious schools and on the mutual approach of the various lines of thought thus started. In Manu and a few other writers the term Yavana is used loosely to indicate one of the hordes which lay beyond the Hindu pale. There are indeed a few isolated passages which, *prima facie*, suggest Greek influence. For instance, Aśvaghoṣa in his Saundara Nandam Kâvyam remarks that some princes founded a city but discovered that if its affairs were to prosper they must have a king. So they raised to rulership one of themselves who was senior to the rest in age, discipline and accomplishments.¹ Here a city is a state, its government is elective and secular in origin. But even here is nothing essentially new to Hindu thought, nothing that could not have arisen from the impact of Buddhist philosophy on the line of thought represented by the Mahâbhârata.

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The deeper problems with which the Greek mind grappled with lasting, amazing results—the sociality of man, the ethos of society or state, the classification of states, etc.—do not appear in Hindu political speculation. If the Greek intellectual genius, always so potent in moulding the thought of peoples, found no opportunity for making itself felt in India, it was hardly likely that the Greeks should influence Hindu government. In the domain of administrative practice the only tangible evidence of Greek influence is the Greek titles or legends on some coins and a few inscriptions. The Indo-Greek coins, however, show a rapid assimilation to the Hindu type. There is no evidence to support the view that the formation of big empires in India was inspired by the example of Alexander's vast dominion. As the foregoing chapters will have proved, the nature and character of Hindu empires were essentially different from those of the Macedonian regime. The latter approached the Roman model. The Hindu empire, on the other hand, was the exact antithesis of Rome which stood for rigidity and uniformity. The process of empire-building had commenced in India, after the characteristic genius of her people, long before Alexander appeared on the scene. The Mauryan empire only represented a further stage in the development. The fact is that Alexander's stay in India was far too short to cast any influence on Indian institutions.

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The effort of Seleucus to revive the glories of the great Macedonian empire ended in failure. The Greeks who appeared on the Indian scene after Seleucus were themselves fast losing touch with the mainsprings of Greek life. At last the rise of Parthia, one of the central events in the history of the Middle East, cut them off almost completely from the centres of Hellenism. Then the Hindu capacity for assimilating foreign elements told with decisive effect. The Indo-Greeks ceased to be Greek and became Indian. Whatever their original political ideals, they were cast aside in favour of Hindu tradition. When all the evidence on administrative practices from coins, inscriptions, literature and foreign accounts is put together, it shows nothing which was Greek in origin or which assumed its historical form under Greek influence. In a like manner the Scythians and others who entered India after the Greeks and who were rapidly Hinduised exercised little influence on the development of institutions in ancient India.

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¹ Supra, Ch. I.

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² History of Indian Literature, p. 17.

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³ Sylvain Lévi, Théatre Indien, pp. 343 -6

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⁴ Keith, Sanskrit Drama, p. 68.

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¹ Saundara Nandam Kâvyam, I, 7-8.

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There is, however, one possible source of foreign influence which needs some examination in detail. For

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India and Persia.

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centuries India maintained constant intercourse with Persia. The early literature, religion and culture of the Irânians were akin to those of the Hindus. It is more than probable that the two branches of the Âryan race had a good deal of social and political organisation in common. After their separation their environment, climatic or economic, was, of course, different but not so radically different as to give rise to fundamentally and entirely different systems of polity. Accordingly, the Persian system of administration, as reconstructed in the light of the latest researches, presents many points of affinity with the institutions examined in the foregoing chapters. It is now recognised that "the discussion as to the respective merits of democracy, oligarchy and monarchy attributed by Herodotus to Darius and his six companions after the death of Gaumata, interesting as it may be as an illustration of Greek political philosophy, is valueless for the Persian theory or practice of government."¹ Like the Hindu, the Persian monarchy was hereditary; pretenders to the Persian throne sought to pass for scions of the royal house. But the principle of primogeniture was not recognised so well in Persia as in India.² In Persia, the king's word was law, a principle which Hindu theory, wedded to Theology, would not recognise. In practice, however, the Persian and Hindu systems came near each other. The king's word in Persia was "generally determined in consultation with the Persian nobles and officials (which custom required of the king), and by regard for the usages of the country concerned. The 'royal judges,' as Herodotus calls them, or 'law-bearers' as they were probably called in Persian (dâtabara), advised the king what was law or custom."'¹ The difference with the Hindu practices lay in the large part played by the priest in the latter. In Persia "the king acted in consultation with his ministers, the heads of great departments of state, which must have existed in the capital, though of them little is directly known. . . . Certain lines of policy characteristic of the Persian government seem clear. While supreme authority resided in the king, great regard was paid, so far as the supremacy of the central authority allowed, to the traditional life and custom of the many diverse peoples gathered into the vast empire. The Persian was a tolerant government.

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¹ G. B. Gray and H. Cary, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. IV, Ch. VII, p. 184.

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² Ibid, p. 184.

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¹ Ibid., pp. 185-86.

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"Not only were the Persians prepared to be tolerant to the various religions within their empire; they went further and actively supported the temple-worship of the gods of their subjects, or contributed to the building of their temples, and conferred on priesthoods and religious institutions special privileges . . . "² *Mutatis mutandis*, this is true of the great empires which arose from time to time in ancient India.

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² Ibid., pp. 185-87.

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The education of the princes in Persia is another point of resemblance with Hindu practice. "At the court of the king himself, or at the minor courts of the satraps, 'all the boys of the foremost Persians,' as Xenophon phrases it, were educated. The stress laid on old Persian habits of life and accomplishments—riding, shooting with the bow, plainness of diet, the chase—formed a counteractive to the luxury which tended to increase with the increase and increasing wealth of the empire . . . "Instruction in history and religion, attendance at judicial proceedings, familiarity with the king's methods of awarding or withholding favours, are

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other elements in this education on which the Greek writers who describe it lay stress."¹ In Persia as in India there was a ruling class which supplied, " not indeed exclusively, but very largely, the generals and officers of the army, the ministers of the central administration, and the satraps and governors of provinces and districts throughout the empire."² The king's audience chamber, and the system of his correspondence and communications again are reminiscent of ancient India.³

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