The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s1.t8: 3. Pâtaliputra, the Indian Rome
The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s1.t8
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3. Pâtaliputra, the Indian Rome
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The municipality of Pâtali-putra, the Rome of the Hindus, was administered almost like a complex modern city. According to Megasthenes,² the Greek ambassador (c B. C. 302) to the Maurya Empire, the city fathers of Pâtali-putra were thirty in number. In their collective capacity they had "charge both of their special departments, and also of matters affecting the general interest as the keeping of public buildings in proper repair, the regulation of prices, the care of markets, harbors and temples".
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² Mc Crindle's *Anc. Ind.*, pp. 87, 88; Abbott's *Roman Political Institutions*, 280—281, 367—369; Fairlie's *Municipal Administration*, pp. 16—17.
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The municipal corporation consisted of six divisions. Each had five members on the *panchâyatic* principle. The first jurisdiction of the city government was industrial arts. The second division looked after the entertainment of foreigners. To these the city assigned lodgings and kept "watch over their modes of life" by means of those persons who were appointed to assist them. The city arranged to "escort the aliens on the way" when they left the country, or, in the event of their dying, forwarded their "property to their relatives". Foreign visitors were treated indeed as guests of the nation. They were taken care of by the city when they were sick, and buried under government supervision if they died. Census and vital statistics constituted the jurisdiction of the third board. The City regularly recorded facts as to "when and how births and deaths occur, with the view not only of levying a tax, but also in order that births and deaths among both high and low might not escape the cognizance of Government".³
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³ Law's *Hind. Pol.*, pp. 106—114, cf. Abbott, 192—193.
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The fourth board superintended trade and commerce. Its members had charge of weights and measures,⁴ and saw to it that the products in their season were sold by public notice. No one was allowed to deal in more than one kind of commodity unless he paid a double tax. The fifth division supervised manufactured articles which they sold by public notice. The new were sold separately from the old, and there was a fine for mixing the two together. The sixth class of municipal governors consisted of those who collected the tithes (i. e. the tenths) of the prices of the articles sold. Fraud in the payment of this tax was punished with death.
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⁴ Arnold's *Roman System of Provincial Administration*, p. 209.
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Heavy was the responsibility of this Indian Rome's *nâgaraka* (mayor) and city council. For Pâtali-putra in the third and fourth centuries B. C. was the largest city in the world. Its territorial limits were more than four times those of Periclean Athens (c B. C. 430) or of Augustan Rome (B. C. 27—14 A. C.), the greatest cities of ancient Europe.
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The story is well known how the first rude settlements of Romulus on the Palatine Hill were gradually extended until the so-called "wall of Servius" furnished the "city of the seven hills" with a circuit about five miles (c B. C. 490). Never was the area of Athens larger than this of Servian Rome. For about eight hundred years, again, the physical dimensions of Rome remained unchanged. It was in the third century A. C. that Emperor Aurelian (270--75) enlarged the city beyond its historic limits. The walls of the new city including what may be called Greater Rome measured a circuit of 18, 337 metres (about 10¹/₂ miles). The number of towers over the walls was then 383 and there were 16 principal gates.¹
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Let us now consider the size and area of Pâtali-putra as seen by Megasthenes,² and the magnitude of the municipal government would be apparent at once. The city was encompassed all round by a ditch, 600 ft. in breadth and 30 cubits in depth. The ditch was meant for defence of the city as well as for receiving its sewage. The wooden wall of the metropolis was "pierced with loopholes for the discharge of arrows". It was "crowned with 570 towers and had 64 gates". In the inhabited quarters, Pâtali-putra "stretched to an extreme length on each side of 80 stadia" (about 9 miles). "Its breadth was 15 stadia (about 1³/₄ mile). And it was of the "shape of a parallelogram". The total circuit was therefore about 21¹/₂ miles, i. e. slightly above the double of that of Aurelian's Rome. Verily, Hindu burgomasters must have had Atlantean shoulders to bear on them the financial burden and civic duties of two European Romes in one Asian capital.
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¹ Ramsay and Lancian's *Roman Antiquities*, pp. 10, 15.
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² Mc Crindle's *Anc. Ind.*, pp. 66, 68.