The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.44

c21.44

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.