Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c11.22

c11.22

The distinctive feature of the *Arthaśāstra* polity is to exalt monarchical power (*rāja-śāsana*) over all the other sources of authority,⁴ and to make it felt among the subjects through as many as nearly thirty departments. This general policy of the Mauryan empire is in the main borne out by the inscriptions of Aśoka, who acted as a promulgator of the dharma and who possessed a fairly well organised bureaucracy. Significantly enough the tendency towards the all-pervading power of the state as represented by the king also manifested itself in the empire of Alexander and was carried forward by the Hellenistic monarchies which arose on its ruins.⁵ Thus Strabo, quoting from Megasthenes, rightly compares the magistrates in India with similar officers in Hellenistic Egypt.¹ Kauṭilya claims to have studied the practices prevailing in the contemporary states,² and hence his exaltation of the monarchical power seems to reflect the spirit of the age.