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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s2.t2: 2. The Kautilyan Councils

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s2.t2

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2. The Kautilyan Councils

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The first was known simply as the *Sabhâ* or the deliberative “Council of State”. It studied the “means of commencing operations” and “providing men and materials”. “Distribution of place and time” was one of its functions. And it also addressed itself to the “counteracting of disaster" and "successful accomplishment". The councillors were asked by the Emperor for their advice individually and collectively, and their opinions had to be given together with reasons.

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The second was the *Mantri-parishat* or the executive "Council of Ministers". Its functions were fourfold: commencement of work not begun, completion of the work already begun, improvement of accomplished work, and proper execution of passed orders. Members of this body did not ordinarily take part in the deliberations of the "Council of State" but only looked after their respective charges. On emergency, however, they might be invited to join the Council of State. The advice of the majority (*bhûyisṭhâh*) would appear to have often been rejected by the Emperor at discretion if some other course appealed to him as more conducive to success.

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The description of the councils is however given in such general terms that one wonders as to whether Kautilya was here adumbrating a theory or giving an account of the actual institutions of public law.

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In the theory¹ of the constitution as expressed in the *Mahâbhârata*, *Kâmandakî-nîti*, *Śukra-nîti*, Agni-Purâṇa, and other treatises, the council is a very important estate of the realm. The councillors constitute, as Bharadvâja says, the "sole prop" of the state.² The ideal appears to have been realized to a certain extent in *Realpolitik*.

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¹ *Am. Pol. Sc. Rev.* for Nov. 1918, pp. 585—586. While it is possible to trace *ideas* of constitutional government in the political *śâstras*, it is not allowable, as Banerjea does (*Public*, 50—51), to describe the actual Maurya monarchy as "limited".

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² *Artha*, Book V, Ch. IV.

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