An
interesting
item in his duties was the main-
tenance of a rain-gauge'.
tenance of a rain-gauge'.
Cambridge History of India - v1
436 (#474) ############################################
436
[CH.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
was employed ; and from the Edicts of Açoka three such vernaculars are
known, one of which, that of Magadha, probably profited by its central
position at the headquarters of the empire to encroach upon the others! .
The Sanskrit was perhaps favoured in cultured circles, and especially in
the cities ; and social ambition, hampered by insufficient training, began to
foster a hybrid form of speech, now known as 'mixed Sanskrit,' which
subsequently established itself as a literary medium in certain Buddhist
schools, when the canonical vernaculars, themselves by no means dialecti-
cally pure, had already become stereotypeda.
We shall not trespass further on the province of the historian of
language and literature. Nor need we dwell at length upon the likewise
special topics of religion and law. Nevertheless there is an aspect of these
which appertains to general history.
There can be little doubt that the Maurya empire began with a
Brāhman, as well as a national, reaction? . The age of Buddha was one
in which religious speculation was rife. Originally a product of the
Brāhman hermitages, it had offered irresistible attractions to a people
wearied of ritual formality. Innumerable sects arose ; it became a common
understanding that from any class a man could go forth, a bandoning his
home, and found or join a sect of wandering disputants or ascetics. The
Greck writers combine with the Buddhist and Jain books and the edicts of
Açoka in testifying to the ubiquity of the pravrajitas çramaņas (Gk.
Gapuăvii, capuivaiol)5. We cannot doubt that this would in the end
constitute a danger to the established order and an offence to the Brāhman
caste. The Brāhman, in the Vedic age a priest, had long ceased to be
primarily so. It is true that in public and private ritual the priestly
.
function was his, and he was entitled to the emoluments thereof : also the
Purohita, or king's spiritual adviser was one of the highest and most
indispensable officers of state. It was; moreover, customary to consult the
forest-dwelling Brāhmans upon high political matters, and in the law.
courts the sacred law was stated by Brāhman assessors? . Nevertheless, as
has been well said, the Brāhman was not a person who fulfilled a sacred
function - in particular, the service of a temple bas always been regarded
as demeaning him—but a person who was sacred. He was exempt from
taxation and confiscation, from corporal chastisement and the death
1 Senart, Inscriptions de Piyadasi, II, pp. 434-5.
2 The priority of the Pāli style is clearly shown by Prof. Oldenberg, G. G. N. , 1912,
pp. 156 sqq.
3 Lassen, op. cit. II, p. 213.
4 See Mbh. XII, 63, 23 ; Megasth, XXXII, 12 ; and Rhys Davids, Buddhist India,
pp. 141 sqq.
5 Rock Edict, XIII ; Megasth. XLI, 19. The vlóßloi are the Sanskrit vānaprasthas.
6 Megasth. XLIII, 19. Moh. XII, 86, 26.
7 Manu, VIII, 10 ; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 159.
9
## p. 437 (#475) ############################################
XIX]
RELIGION : LAW
437
a
penalty, branding and banishment being in his case the ultima ratio'. His
true office was study and teaching, and his proper abode was the forest
hermitage, where he maintained the sacred fires and lived for another
world. An order such as this, established in customary respect and daily
observance, was obviously threatened by the intervention of proselytising
sects of impromptu origin, making claims upon the livelihood of the people,
and interposing in formal and informal gatherings with fundamental pro-
blems. We can therefore well understand why the Arthaçāstra (Chap. 19)
forbids the practice of abandoning domestic life without formal sanction
and without provision for wife and family ; and we look forward with
confidence to the great doctrine of the Bhagavadgitā, that grand pillar of
Brāhmanism, that salvation is attainable not by the rejection of civil duty,
but in and above the performance of it. Accordingly we see in the Maurya
age the beginning of a stage of concentration, in which only a few great
sects could maintain themselves by the side of a settled Brāhman ortho-
doxy. And this was a natural corollary of a great empire.
Among the Brāhman deities the greatest share of popular adoration
accrued to Çiva and Vishņu (under the form of Kșishņa), whom the
Greeks report to us as Dionysus and Heracles respectively? . With the
former was associated Skanda or Viçākha, the gold of war. The Buddhist
books and sculptures, which give the preference to Brahmā and Indra,
are in this respect archaising. Çiva was specially worshipped in the hill
region33 ; of the Vishņu cult the great centre was Mathurā', the second
home of the Krishṇa legend, which first arose in Western India. The
Jains were probably still mostly to be found in Bihār and Ujjain, while the
Buddhist expansion had perhaps even in the lifetime of the founder
attained a far wider range.
Of law the bases are defined as, in ascending order of validity, sacred
precept (Dharma), agreement (vyavahāra), custom (charitra), and royal
edicts (rājaçāsana), and the subject is expounded rationally, not theologi-
cally. Civil law is treated under the heads of marriage and dowry, inherit-
ance, housing and neighbourhood (including trespass), debt, deposit,
slaves, labour and contract, sale, violence and abuse, gaming and
miscellanea. Cases were heard - in the morning-before a trial of officials
together wit
three Brāhman exponents of law? ; and there were rules
as to the eircumstances in which agreements were valid, and as to procedure
in court, with plea, counterplea, and rejoinders. We learn from various
>
1 Arth. p. 220 ; Manu, VIII, 123. 4, 380 ; Mbh. XII, 56, 32-3; Megasth. I, 40.
2 Megasth, 1, 29-37; L.
3 Ibid. 1,33 ; L.
4 lbid. L. 13.
5 Arth. 58 (p. 150). Custom includes the custom of villages, gilds, and families
(Manu, VIII, 41). For a general survey of the history of law and legal institutions see
Chapter XII.
6 Arth. 57-75. Manu (VIII, 3 sqq. ) mentions 18 heads of legal action.
7 Arth. 57; Manu, LIV, 10. In Manu VIII, 60, three witnesses are the minimum.
8 Arth. 57.
>
## p. 438 (#476) ############################################
438
[сн.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
sources that cases were commonly disposed of locally by reference to a
body of arbitrators (panchāyat), permanent or constituted ad hoc, or by
the officials of various grades ; and there was a system of appeals as far as
the king, who was regularly present in court or represented by a minister
(prādvivāka). Offences against caste or religion were tried by committees
entitled parishads. Trials by wager or ordeal were also common. The
penalties, reasonably graduated and executed by royal authority, include
fines (these, and also debts, often commutable for forced labour? , whipping,
mutilation, and death with or without torture. In cases of assault the
principle familar in the modern proverb 'first at the Thānā' is already
known, but disputed? .
Under the title 'clearing of thorns' are included criminal law, political
offences, in particular misconduct on the part of officials, and the general
business of police. Among the cases contemplated we may cite theft,
murder, burglary or forcible entry, poisoning, coining, injury to property,
criminal negligence, contumelious violation of caste rules, boycott and
other acts of employees, combinations to affect prices, fraud in regard to
weights and measures. In all these matters the magistrates ( pradeshiri, ,
revenue and police officers) were assisted by an army of spies and agents-
provocateurs, who in times of fiscal difficulty were also empowered to
adopt the most reprehensible expedients for squeezing the well-to-do'. If .
the Greek writers are to be trusted when they report a rarity of offences
among the Indianse, this was plainly not due to a state of innocence even
as regards elaborate criminal acts.
We now come to the matter of government and administration,
which we may treat with a little more system.
Beginning with the civil administration and at its base, we find al-
ready in operation that system of village autonomy under the headman
(grāmani, an official nominee), which has prevailed in India at all periods.
Through him, no doubt, there was a joint responsibility for the assignment
and payment of the land revenue, and consequently for the proper cultiva-
tion of the fields, which failing, the occupier might be replaced by the village
servants’. In consultation with the elders, the village panchāyat, he would
also decide all questions relating to the customary rights and duties of the
village barber, washerman, potter, blacksmith, and so on. His superiors
were the gopa in charge of five or ten villages and sthānika theoretically
ruling one quarter of the realm®, each attended by executive, revenue, and
police officials. By some textsº further official gradations are recognised.
1 Manu. VIII, 177 ( debt), IX, 229 (fines).
2 Arth. 73 (p. 196).
3 Arth. 76. 88.
4 Manu, VII, 267 sqq.
5 Arth. 90 ; Moh. XII, 130, 36.
6 Megasth. XXVII.
7 Arth, 19 (p. 47).
8 Arth. 19.
9 Manu, VII. 115 ; Moh. XII, 87, 2 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 84.
## p. 439 (#477) ############################################
XIX]
MINISTERS
439
and in the edicts of Açoka the highest local officials, set over hundreds of
thousands of persons, are termed rājūkas, a designation pointing, no doubt,
of functions connected with survey, land settlement, and irrigation? . The
superior of all these, to whom they reported successively, was one of the
great ministers of state, the samāhartri, or Minister of the Interior and
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
This important official dealt with the whole income of the state,
including that of the Royal domains. The main heads are (1) the propor-
tion of the produce of land, which in India accrues immemorially to the
king in lieu of rent, (2) the minor dues and cesses connected therewith3,
(3) the special income from irrigated land, and that from pastures, forests,
mines, and other works, (4) the customs at the frontiers, the transport dues
at ferries, etc. , the road dues and tolls, the octroi at the city gates, the
profits of coinage, and the various profits consequent upon the methods of
sale, (5) the fees exacted as licences from workmen, craftsmen, traders and
professionals, gaming houses and passports", (6) the fines derived from the
law courts, also ownerless property, and (7) special taxes, as it were tithes,
for religious objects. In times of straitness there were also benevolence's
exacted, but in theory only once, from the well-to-do. Under expenditure
we understand without difficulty the maintenance of the sovereign and his
court, the salaries - which the Arthaçāstra (Chap. 91) carefully defines -
of the ministry and the vast army of minor officials and spies, religious
provisions, the demands of the army and its equipment, including forts, the
expense of mines, forests, etc. , and of public works such as roads, irrigation,
etc. , which was regarded as the function of the state, the meintenance of
the families of slain soldiers, officials dying during employment, and finally
of helpless persons? . We have here matter for the work of a large estab-
lishment and an elabɔrate clerical system ; and we learn in fact from the
Arthaçāstra (Chaps. 25-7) that the business of the treasury was carefully
and minutely organised, with distinctions of current, recurrent, occasional,
and other expenditure and various checks. Moreover, both in town and
country the various grades of officials maintained full register both of
1 Būhler, Z. D. M. G. , XLVII, pp.
466
s99.
2 Arth. 24 and 54 ; Manu, VII, 60.
3 See Manu, VII, 127 sqq. The normal proportion is one-sixth ; seo Hopkins, The
Four Castes, p. 77. But one-fourth in addition to rent is mentioned by Megasthenes
(v. sup. p. 428, n. 1). The mention of rent is contrary to our Indian information and
constitutes a problem.
4 Arth. 52 ; Manu, VII, 137-8.
5 Arth. 60 ; Manu, VIII, 30-8; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 122-3.
Praņaya or prīti (to be demanded only once); seo Arth. 90, Hopkins, op. cit.
pp. 78, 89, 90-1.
7 Arth. 19 (p. 47), 91 (p. 246)-; Mbh. XII, 77, 18, 86, 24; Hopkins, J. A. O. S. ,
XIII, p. 107. Stolen property, if untraced, was also to be made good by the State ; cf.
Mbh. XII, 75, 10.
>
6
## p. 440 (#478) ############################################
440
[ch.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
property and of the population. Thus the bifurcating roots of a vast
administration -no doubt more effective in theory than in practice-
connected the individual taxpayer with the crown.
Another important minister was the sannidhātri, or Minister of
Works? , who had charge of storehouses, treasuries, prisons, armouries,
warehouses and the like.
An interesting item in his duties was the main-
tenance of a rain-gauge'. We shall not dwell upon the pradeshịri', or head
of the executive revenue and judicial service, or the praçāstri, or Minister of
Correspondence, who was responsible for the drafting of decrees and royal
letters", nor, of course, upon the numerous adhyakashas, or superintendents,
the Episcopi of the Greek writers, in charge of minor departments. The
other great officers of state were the dauvārika, Chamberlain or Master of
the Ceremonies, the antarvamçika or Head of the Bodyguard, and the four
indispensable chiefs who formed the inner cabinet, namely the mantrin, i. e.
Diwān or Prime Minister, the purohita, or religious adviser, the senāpati, or
Commander-in-Chief, and the yuvarāja, or Heir Apparent. In the provinces
were the various antapalās, or Guardians of Frontiers, and durga pālas, or
Commanders of Forts, while the great empire of the Mauryas found a place
also for the Viceroy (uparāja), no doubt attended by his own, minor,
court. The functions of ambassadors are clearly recognised, with distinc-
tions of plenipotentiary, envoy, and instructed emissary, and rules for
their behaviour are enunciated. The chief ministers were in many cases
hereditary and, except in the instance of the Purohita, they would be
more often of Kshatriya, than of Brāhman, caste (Manu, vi, 54).
As regards the government of cities, we hear of the mayor (nāgaraka),
under whom as in the country districts and sthānikas and gopas, whose
duties similarly include the keeping of registers of persons and property.
All inns, hostels, serais, and places of entertainment are under surveillance,
and reports are received concerning strangers and frequenters. Then there
are the various superintendents of works and dues, of sales, weights and
measures, of store-houses and so forth. According to Strabo many of
these duties were discharged by bcards of five (pañchāyats), and he
enumerates six such boards, whose respective functions have already been
described in Chapter xvi. No doubt the system varied from place to place,
and it mav have differed according as the city was capital or provincial,
1 Arth. 54-6.
2 Ibid. 23.
3 Ibid. p. 58.
4 On his duties see J. R. A. S. , 1914, pp. 383-6.
5 Arth. 28.
6 Arth. 12 ; Manu, VII, 63. 7. A list of officials may be seen also in Hopkins,
op. cit. pp. 128, 129 n.
7 Arth. 56 ; Manu, VI, 121 ; Mbh. XII, 87, 10, In virtue of his general functions
he is entitled, like the premier, sarrārthachintaka, 'thinker upon all matters'; cf. Foy,
op. cit. p. 75,
8 XV, C, 703, A panchāyat is mentioned in connexion with town administration
in the passage from the Mahābhārata, ap, Hopkins, op. cit. p. 85 n.
## p. 441 (#479) ############################################
XIX)
THE MILITARY
441
subject to a sovereign or independent (δημοκρατουμένη, αυτόνομος
as according to Megasthens most of them had at one time been). We
may think of the difference between a royal borough and free town in our
own middle ages.
Coming now to the military, we find that the native Indian accounts
present a view of the case rather less simple than does Megasthenese.
According to these accounts the military might consist of troops
of different kinds, namely hereditary or feudatory troops, hired troops.
gild levies, and forest tribes. In the first named, which were regarded as
the most trustworthy, we may doubtless recognise the old Kshatriya
division of society, connected by caste, and ultimately by race, with
the king himself, such as in later times we find them in the quasi-feudal
states of Rajputāna. In the second class also the Kshatriya element
would probably predominate, though here there would be, no doubt,
a career for any bold adventure with a strong arm and a soldierly bent.
As concerns the gild troops, which are plainly regarded as having a
chiefly defensive character', there is some room for doubt: were they
merely the ordinary trade gilds, as an organisation for calling out the
people for service in time of invasion, a sort of militia or landwehr ?
Or were they quasi-military corporations, such as the modern Bțiñjāras,
whose business was to supply merchants and others with armed protection
of a quasi-professional character ? While refraining from a decisive
pronunciation, we cannot but incline in the circumstances to the former
alternative, for which the gilds of medieval Europe supply a fair analogy,
and which is supported by the defensive character of the force.
case the gild troops were regarded as in military value inferior to the
men-at-arms. The forest tribes, employed like the Red Indians in the
French and English wars of North America, or like other untrained
auxiliaries in the armies of Greece and Rome, were destined for the
service of distracting or detaining the enemy rather than for the actual
crises of campaigns.
The main divisions of the army were the elephant corps, the cavalry,
and the foot : to which should be added the foragers and camp-followers.
There was a scientific distinction of vanguard, centre, rear, wings, reserve,
and camp, with elaborate discussions of formations on the niarch and
in battle, attack and defence, and the value and employment of the
several arms'. Equipment was in considerable variety, including fixed and
1 I. 32 ; XXXII, 4 ; XXXIV, 7.
2 See Chapter XVI, p 368.
3 Arth. 137 ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 185 sqq.
4 They are for ‘short expeditions' and less quickly assembled (Arth. pp. 341 and
346); cf. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 94 ; Manu, VIII, 41.
5 On these see Arth. 160 (p. 376).
6 Arth. 12 (p. 31) ; Mbh. XII, 59, 48.
7 Arth. 107 sqq. ; Manu, VII, 187 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 191 sqq. , 201 sqq.
>
In any
## p. 442 (#480) ############################################
442
(CH.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
were
не
mobile engines, such as 'hundred-slayers''. Such instruments were, of
course, familiar even to the early nations of Mesopotamia, as
also the construction and siege of forts. The Indian forts were, as
have seen, systematically designed, with ditches, ramparts, battlements,
covered ways, portcullises, and water-gates ; and in the assault the
arts of mining, countermining, flooding mines were employed no less than
the devices of diplomacy. In short, the Indians possessed the art of
war. If all their science failed them against Alexander, and against
subsequent invaders, we may conjecture, in accordance with other aspects
of Indian thought, the reason that there was too much of it. In the
formation adopted by Porus, the elephants and chariots in front and the
infantry in the rear, we may perhaps detect an agreement with the precepts
of the books. As regards the ethics of fighting, the Greeks received
an impression of something not unchivalrous ; and here too we may
recall the written precepts as to fair fighting, not attacking the wounded
or those already engaged or the disarmed, and sparing those who
surrendered".
It is in foreign policy that we find the culmination of the Indian
genius for systematic exposition, the principles being those of Machiavellis.
Policy was not large aims ; the mainspring is the rivalry of kings and the
much applauded desire for glory and imperial rule. Already we find
worked out in pedantic detail the not unreasonable principle that the
neighbouring state is the enemy and the alternate one the ally. The varying
circumstances decide in which of the six guņas, or situations, the monarch
finds himself, whether aggressor, defender, or tertius gaudens, and to which
of the four expedients, war, conciliation, bribery, or dissension, he must
have recourse. Here the arts of treachery and overreaching attain a cli-
max ; even in war there is a whole science of sowing suspicion among allies,
treason in armies, disaffection or revolt in kingdoms (Manu, VII, 190
sqq, ; 11h. xii, 103).
of the polity which we have outlined, the only polity approved by
Indian science, the keystone was the sovereign. Even in the Vedic age the
prevailing system was monarchical. Nevertheless the Vedas afford evi-
dence of tribes in which the chief authority was exercised by a family, or
even, as in the case of the German nations described in the work of
Tacitus, by a whole body of nobles, who are actually designated kings? .
1 Arth. 36 ; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 178 n. , pp. 293-4 and nn.
2 Arth. 168.
3 Arth. 153-7 ; Mbh. XII, 99, 8.
4 Manu, VIT, 90 sqq. ; Mbh. XII, 95,6 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 227 sqq.
5 Arth. 98 sqq. ; Manu, VII, 155 sqq. ; Formichi, Gl Indiani e la loro scienza
Politica, pp. 89 sqq.
6 Zimmer, Attindisches Leben, pp. 162 sqq.
7 Rhys Davids Buddhist India, pp. 1 sqq. : Jayaswal, An Introduction to Hindu
Polity. pp. 3 sqq.
a
## p. 443 (#481) ############################################
XIX]
POLITY
443
of such ruling oligarchies the age of Buddha furnishes, as is well known, a
number of examples ; such were the Mallas of Kusinārā and the Licchavis
of Vesāli. To these oligarchical communities the growth of the great
kingdoms proved destructive : at the time of Alexander's invasion they had
largely disappeared from eastern Hindustān, and in the Punjab also Porus
was working for their subjugation! The Arthaçāstra (Chaps. 160-1) has
even a policy of compassing their overthrow by internal dissension. Never
theless, a number of them survived through and after the Maurya empire”,
and one of them, that of the Mālavas, handed down to later India its first
persistent era, the so-called Vikrama era, which is still the common era of
northern India.
In the monarchies the king controls the whole administration, and
by his spies3 keeps watch upon every part of it. He is recommended to
check his officials by division and frequent change of functions. Never-
theless, the Indian king is no sultan with the sole obligation of satisfying
his personal caprice. The origin of royalty is the growth of wickedness
and the necessity of chastisement, the virtue of which the Indian writers
celebrate with a real enthusiasm. It is as guardian of the social (includ-
ing domestic and religious) order and defence against anarchical oppression
that the king is entitled to his revenue ; failing to perform this duty, he
takes upon himself a corresponding share of the national sin. Educated
in these precepts among a moralising people, he would have been more
than human had he escaped the obsession of this conception of his duties.
Hence we not seldom hear on royal, as well as on priestly, lips the expres-
sion that the king should be the father of his people. ?
His education is in philosophy, Vedic lore, business, and the science
of polity* : he is also to receive the ordinary instruction in mathematics
and literature! . He must attain to complete control of his passions by
consideration of the errors of famous men in the past. He must never be
off his guard or lacking in force. 10
His occupations are mapped out with a minuteness which in the litera-
ture is a subject of humorous comment11 The day and the night are divided
Jayaswal, op. cit. pp. 1-7
2 See Chapter XXI.
3 Class . fied in Arth. 8-9
4 Ibid. 22 (p. 57), 27 (p. 70),
5 Mbh. XII, 59 and 121-2 ; Manu, VII, 14 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 135 sqq.
6 Cf. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 87.
? Ibid. pp. 113 sqq. ; Manu, VII, 80.
8 Arth. 1; Manu, VII, 43.
9 The king Khāravela of Kaliàga is educated in writing, arithmetic, law, and all
sciences, Cf. Arth. 2 and Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 108 sqq.
10 Energy uttana, 'alertness' (Hopkins, op. cit. p. 125), is the favourite word.
11 See also chapter XVI, p 373 Arth. 16 ; Manu, VII, 145 sqq. , 217 sqq.
Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 129 sqq.
436
[CH.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
was employed ; and from the Edicts of Açoka three such vernaculars are
known, one of which, that of Magadha, probably profited by its central
position at the headquarters of the empire to encroach upon the others! .
The Sanskrit was perhaps favoured in cultured circles, and especially in
the cities ; and social ambition, hampered by insufficient training, began to
foster a hybrid form of speech, now known as 'mixed Sanskrit,' which
subsequently established itself as a literary medium in certain Buddhist
schools, when the canonical vernaculars, themselves by no means dialecti-
cally pure, had already become stereotypeda.
We shall not trespass further on the province of the historian of
language and literature. Nor need we dwell at length upon the likewise
special topics of religion and law. Nevertheless there is an aspect of these
which appertains to general history.
There can be little doubt that the Maurya empire began with a
Brāhman, as well as a national, reaction? . The age of Buddha was one
in which religious speculation was rife. Originally a product of the
Brāhman hermitages, it had offered irresistible attractions to a people
wearied of ritual formality. Innumerable sects arose ; it became a common
understanding that from any class a man could go forth, a bandoning his
home, and found or join a sect of wandering disputants or ascetics. The
Greck writers combine with the Buddhist and Jain books and the edicts of
Açoka in testifying to the ubiquity of the pravrajitas çramaņas (Gk.
Gapuăvii, capuivaiol)5. We cannot doubt that this would in the end
constitute a danger to the established order and an offence to the Brāhman
caste. The Brāhman, in the Vedic age a priest, had long ceased to be
primarily so. It is true that in public and private ritual the priestly
.
function was his, and he was entitled to the emoluments thereof : also the
Purohita, or king's spiritual adviser was one of the highest and most
indispensable officers of state. It was; moreover, customary to consult the
forest-dwelling Brāhmans upon high political matters, and in the law.
courts the sacred law was stated by Brāhman assessors? . Nevertheless, as
has been well said, the Brāhman was not a person who fulfilled a sacred
function - in particular, the service of a temple bas always been regarded
as demeaning him—but a person who was sacred. He was exempt from
taxation and confiscation, from corporal chastisement and the death
1 Senart, Inscriptions de Piyadasi, II, pp. 434-5.
2 The priority of the Pāli style is clearly shown by Prof. Oldenberg, G. G. N. , 1912,
pp. 156 sqq.
3 Lassen, op. cit. II, p. 213.
4 See Mbh. XII, 63, 23 ; Megasth, XXXII, 12 ; and Rhys Davids, Buddhist India,
pp. 141 sqq.
5 Rock Edict, XIII ; Megasth. XLI, 19. The vlóßloi are the Sanskrit vānaprasthas.
6 Megasth. XLIII, 19. Moh. XII, 86, 26.
7 Manu, VIII, 10 ; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 159.
9
## p. 437 (#475) ############################################
XIX]
RELIGION : LAW
437
a
penalty, branding and banishment being in his case the ultima ratio'. His
true office was study and teaching, and his proper abode was the forest
hermitage, where he maintained the sacred fires and lived for another
world. An order such as this, established in customary respect and daily
observance, was obviously threatened by the intervention of proselytising
sects of impromptu origin, making claims upon the livelihood of the people,
and interposing in formal and informal gatherings with fundamental pro-
blems. We can therefore well understand why the Arthaçāstra (Chap. 19)
forbids the practice of abandoning domestic life without formal sanction
and without provision for wife and family ; and we look forward with
confidence to the great doctrine of the Bhagavadgitā, that grand pillar of
Brāhmanism, that salvation is attainable not by the rejection of civil duty,
but in and above the performance of it. Accordingly we see in the Maurya
age the beginning of a stage of concentration, in which only a few great
sects could maintain themselves by the side of a settled Brāhman ortho-
doxy. And this was a natural corollary of a great empire.
Among the Brāhman deities the greatest share of popular adoration
accrued to Çiva and Vishņu (under the form of Kșishņa), whom the
Greeks report to us as Dionysus and Heracles respectively? . With the
former was associated Skanda or Viçākha, the gold of war. The Buddhist
books and sculptures, which give the preference to Brahmā and Indra,
are in this respect archaising. Çiva was specially worshipped in the hill
region33 ; of the Vishņu cult the great centre was Mathurā', the second
home of the Krishṇa legend, which first arose in Western India. The
Jains were probably still mostly to be found in Bihār and Ujjain, while the
Buddhist expansion had perhaps even in the lifetime of the founder
attained a far wider range.
Of law the bases are defined as, in ascending order of validity, sacred
precept (Dharma), agreement (vyavahāra), custom (charitra), and royal
edicts (rājaçāsana), and the subject is expounded rationally, not theologi-
cally. Civil law is treated under the heads of marriage and dowry, inherit-
ance, housing and neighbourhood (including trespass), debt, deposit,
slaves, labour and contract, sale, violence and abuse, gaming and
miscellanea. Cases were heard - in the morning-before a trial of officials
together wit
three Brāhman exponents of law? ; and there were rules
as to the eircumstances in which agreements were valid, and as to procedure
in court, with plea, counterplea, and rejoinders. We learn from various
>
1 Arth. p. 220 ; Manu, VIII, 123. 4, 380 ; Mbh. XII, 56, 32-3; Megasth. I, 40.
2 Megasth, 1, 29-37; L.
3 Ibid. 1,33 ; L.
4 lbid. L. 13.
5 Arth. 58 (p. 150). Custom includes the custom of villages, gilds, and families
(Manu, VIII, 41). For a general survey of the history of law and legal institutions see
Chapter XII.
6 Arth. 57-75. Manu (VIII, 3 sqq. ) mentions 18 heads of legal action.
7 Arth. 57; Manu, LIV, 10. In Manu VIII, 60, three witnesses are the minimum.
8 Arth. 57.
>
## p. 438 (#476) ############################################
438
[сн.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
sources that cases were commonly disposed of locally by reference to a
body of arbitrators (panchāyat), permanent or constituted ad hoc, or by
the officials of various grades ; and there was a system of appeals as far as
the king, who was regularly present in court or represented by a minister
(prādvivāka). Offences against caste or religion were tried by committees
entitled parishads. Trials by wager or ordeal were also common. The
penalties, reasonably graduated and executed by royal authority, include
fines (these, and also debts, often commutable for forced labour? , whipping,
mutilation, and death with or without torture. In cases of assault the
principle familar in the modern proverb 'first at the Thānā' is already
known, but disputed? .
Under the title 'clearing of thorns' are included criminal law, political
offences, in particular misconduct on the part of officials, and the general
business of police. Among the cases contemplated we may cite theft,
murder, burglary or forcible entry, poisoning, coining, injury to property,
criminal negligence, contumelious violation of caste rules, boycott and
other acts of employees, combinations to affect prices, fraud in regard to
weights and measures. In all these matters the magistrates ( pradeshiri, ,
revenue and police officers) were assisted by an army of spies and agents-
provocateurs, who in times of fiscal difficulty were also empowered to
adopt the most reprehensible expedients for squeezing the well-to-do'. If .
the Greek writers are to be trusted when they report a rarity of offences
among the Indianse, this was plainly not due to a state of innocence even
as regards elaborate criminal acts.
We now come to the matter of government and administration,
which we may treat with a little more system.
Beginning with the civil administration and at its base, we find al-
ready in operation that system of village autonomy under the headman
(grāmani, an official nominee), which has prevailed in India at all periods.
Through him, no doubt, there was a joint responsibility for the assignment
and payment of the land revenue, and consequently for the proper cultiva-
tion of the fields, which failing, the occupier might be replaced by the village
servants’. In consultation with the elders, the village panchāyat, he would
also decide all questions relating to the customary rights and duties of the
village barber, washerman, potter, blacksmith, and so on. His superiors
were the gopa in charge of five or ten villages and sthānika theoretically
ruling one quarter of the realm®, each attended by executive, revenue, and
police officials. By some textsº further official gradations are recognised.
1 Manu. VIII, 177 ( debt), IX, 229 (fines).
2 Arth. 73 (p. 196).
3 Arth. 76. 88.
4 Manu, VII, 267 sqq.
5 Arth. 90 ; Moh. XII, 130, 36.
6 Megasth. XXVII.
7 Arth, 19 (p. 47).
8 Arth. 19.
9 Manu, VII. 115 ; Moh. XII, 87, 2 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 84.
## p. 439 (#477) ############################################
XIX]
MINISTERS
439
and in the edicts of Açoka the highest local officials, set over hundreds of
thousands of persons, are termed rājūkas, a designation pointing, no doubt,
of functions connected with survey, land settlement, and irrigation? . The
superior of all these, to whom they reported successively, was one of the
great ministers of state, the samāhartri, or Minister of the Interior and
Chancellor of the Exchequer.
This important official dealt with the whole income of the state,
including that of the Royal domains. The main heads are (1) the propor-
tion of the produce of land, which in India accrues immemorially to the
king in lieu of rent, (2) the minor dues and cesses connected therewith3,
(3) the special income from irrigated land, and that from pastures, forests,
mines, and other works, (4) the customs at the frontiers, the transport dues
at ferries, etc. , the road dues and tolls, the octroi at the city gates, the
profits of coinage, and the various profits consequent upon the methods of
sale, (5) the fees exacted as licences from workmen, craftsmen, traders and
professionals, gaming houses and passports", (6) the fines derived from the
law courts, also ownerless property, and (7) special taxes, as it were tithes,
for religious objects. In times of straitness there were also benevolence's
exacted, but in theory only once, from the well-to-do. Under expenditure
we understand without difficulty the maintenance of the sovereign and his
court, the salaries - which the Arthaçāstra (Chap. 91) carefully defines -
of the ministry and the vast army of minor officials and spies, religious
provisions, the demands of the army and its equipment, including forts, the
expense of mines, forests, etc. , and of public works such as roads, irrigation,
etc. , which was regarded as the function of the state, the meintenance of
the families of slain soldiers, officials dying during employment, and finally
of helpless persons? . We have here matter for the work of a large estab-
lishment and an elabɔrate clerical system ; and we learn in fact from the
Arthaçāstra (Chaps. 25-7) that the business of the treasury was carefully
and minutely organised, with distinctions of current, recurrent, occasional,
and other expenditure and various checks. Moreover, both in town and
country the various grades of officials maintained full register both of
1 Būhler, Z. D. M. G. , XLVII, pp.
466
s99.
2 Arth. 24 and 54 ; Manu, VII, 60.
3 See Manu, VII, 127 sqq. The normal proportion is one-sixth ; seo Hopkins, The
Four Castes, p. 77. But one-fourth in addition to rent is mentioned by Megasthenes
(v. sup. p. 428, n. 1). The mention of rent is contrary to our Indian information and
constitutes a problem.
4 Arth. 52 ; Manu, VII, 137-8.
5 Arth. 60 ; Manu, VIII, 30-8; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 122-3.
Praņaya or prīti (to be demanded only once); seo Arth. 90, Hopkins, op. cit.
pp. 78, 89, 90-1.
7 Arth. 19 (p. 47), 91 (p. 246)-; Mbh. XII, 77, 18, 86, 24; Hopkins, J. A. O. S. ,
XIII, p. 107. Stolen property, if untraced, was also to be made good by the State ; cf.
Mbh. XII, 75, 10.
>
6
## p. 440 (#478) ############################################
440
[ch.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
property and of the population. Thus the bifurcating roots of a vast
administration -no doubt more effective in theory than in practice-
connected the individual taxpayer with the crown.
Another important minister was the sannidhātri, or Minister of
Works? , who had charge of storehouses, treasuries, prisons, armouries,
warehouses and the like.
An interesting item in his duties was the main-
tenance of a rain-gauge'. We shall not dwell upon the pradeshịri', or head
of the executive revenue and judicial service, or the praçāstri, or Minister of
Correspondence, who was responsible for the drafting of decrees and royal
letters", nor, of course, upon the numerous adhyakashas, or superintendents,
the Episcopi of the Greek writers, in charge of minor departments. The
other great officers of state were the dauvārika, Chamberlain or Master of
the Ceremonies, the antarvamçika or Head of the Bodyguard, and the four
indispensable chiefs who formed the inner cabinet, namely the mantrin, i. e.
Diwān or Prime Minister, the purohita, or religious adviser, the senāpati, or
Commander-in-Chief, and the yuvarāja, or Heir Apparent. In the provinces
were the various antapalās, or Guardians of Frontiers, and durga pālas, or
Commanders of Forts, while the great empire of the Mauryas found a place
also for the Viceroy (uparāja), no doubt attended by his own, minor,
court. The functions of ambassadors are clearly recognised, with distinc-
tions of plenipotentiary, envoy, and instructed emissary, and rules for
their behaviour are enunciated. The chief ministers were in many cases
hereditary and, except in the instance of the Purohita, they would be
more often of Kshatriya, than of Brāhman, caste (Manu, vi, 54).
As regards the government of cities, we hear of the mayor (nāgaraka),
under whom as in the country districts and sthānikas and gopas, whose
duties similarly include the keeping of registers of persons and property.
All inns, hostels, serais, and places of entertainment are under surveillance,
and reports are received concerning strangers and frequenters. Then there
are the various superintendents of works and dues, of sales, weights and
measures, of store-houses and so forth. According to Strabo many of
these duties were discharged by bcards of five (pañchāyats), and he
enumerates six such boards, whose respective functions have already been
described in Chapter xvi. No doubt the system varied from place to place,
and it mav have differed according as the city was capital or provincial,
1 Arth. 54-6.
2 Ibid. 23.
3 Ibid. p. 58.
4 On his duties see J. R. A. S. , 1914, pp. 383-6.
5 Arth. 28.
6 Arth. 12 ; Manu, VII, 63. 7. A list of officials may be seen also in Hopkins,
op. cit. pp. 128, 129 n.
7 Arth. 56 ; Manu, VI, 121 ; Mbh. XII, 87, 10, In virtue of his general functions
he is entitled, like the premier, sarrārthachintaka, 'thinker upon all matters'; cf. Foy,
op. cit. p. 75,
8 XV, C, 703, A panchāyat is mentioned in connexion with town administration
in the passage from the Mahābhārata, ap, Hopkins, op. cit. p. 85 n.
## p. 441 (#479) ############################################
XIX)
THE MILITARY
441
subject to a sovereign or independent (δημοκρατουμένη, αυτόνομος
as according to Megasthens most of them had at one time been). We
may think of the difference between a royal borough and free town in our
own middle ages.
Coming now to the military, we find that the native Indian accounts
present a view of the case rather less simple than does Megasthenese.
According to these accounts the military might consist of troops
of different kinds, namely hereditary or feudatory troops, hired troops.
gild levies, and forest tribes. In the first named, which were regarded as
the most trustworthy, we may doubtless recognise the old Kshatriya
division of society, connected by caste, and ultimately by race, with
the king himself, such as in later times we find them in the quasi-feudal
states of Rajputāna. In the second class also the Kshatriya element
would probably predominate, though here there would be, no doubt,
a career for any bold adventure with a strong arm and a soldierly bent.
As concerns the gild troops, which are plainly regarded as having a
chiefly defensive character', there is some room for doubt: were they
merely the ordinary trade gilds, as an organisation for calling out the
people for service in time of invasion, a sort of militia or landwehr ?
Or were they quasi-military corporations, such as the modern Bțiñjāras,
whose business was to supply merchants and others with armed protection
of a quasi-professional character ? While refraining from a decisive
pronunciation, we cannot but incline in the circumstances to the former
alternative, for which the gilds of medieval Europe supply a fair analogy,
and which is supported by the defensive character of the force.
case the gild troops were regarded as in military value inferior to the
men-at-arms. The forest tribes, employed like the Red Indians in the
French and English wars of North America, or like other untrained
auxiliaries in the armies of Greece and Rome, were destined for the
service of distracting or detaining the enemy rather than for the actual
crises of campaigns.
The main divisions of the army were the elephant corps, the cavalry,
and the foot : to which should be added the foragers and camp-followers.
There was a scientific distinction of vanguard, centre, rear, wings, reserve,
and camp, with elaborate discussions of formations on the niarch and
in battle, attack and defence, and the value and employment of the
several arms'. Equipment was in considerable variety, including fixed and
1 I. 32 ; XXXII, 4 ; XXXIV, 7.
2 See Chapter XVI, p 368.
3 Arth. 137 ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 185 sqq.
4 They are for ‘short expeditions' and less quickly assembled (Arth. pp. 341 and
346); cf. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 94 ; Manu, VIII, 41.
5 On these see Arth. 160 (p. 376).
6 Arth. 12 (p. 31) ; Mbh. XII, 59, 48.
7 Arth. 107 sqq. ; Manu, VII, 187 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 191 sqq. , 201 sqq.
>
In any
## p. 442 (#480) ############################################
442
(CH.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
were
не
mobile engines, such as 'hundred-slayers''. Such instruments were, of
course, familiar even to the early nations of Mesopotamia, as
also the construction and siege of forts. The Indian forts were, as
have seen, systematically designed, with ditches, ramparts, battlements,
covered ways, portcullises, and water-gates ; and in the assault the
arts of mining, countermining, flooding mines were employed no less than
the devices of diplomacy. In short, the Indians possessed the art of
war. If all their science failed them against Alexander, and against
subsequent invaders, we may conjecture, in accordance with other aspects
of Indian thought, the reason that there was too much of it. In the
formation adopted by Porus, the elephants and chariots in front and the
infantry in the rear, we may perhaps detect an agreement with the precepts
of the books. As regards the ethics of fighting, the Greeks received
an impression of something not unchivalrous ; and here too we may
recall the written precepts as to fair fighting, not attacking the wounded
or those already engaged or the disarmed, and sparing those who
surrendered".
It is in foreign policy that we find the culmination of the Indian
genius for systematic exposition, the principles being those of Machiavellis.
Policy was not large aims ; the mainspring is the rivalry of kings and the
much applauded desire for glory and imperial rule. Already we find
worked out in pedantic detail the not unreasonable principle that the
neighbouring state is the enemy and the alternate one the ally. The varying
circumstances decide in which of the six guņas, or situations, the monarch
finds himself, whether aggressor, defender, or tertius gaudens, and to which
of the four expedients, war, conciliation, bribery, or dissension, he must
have recourse. Here the arts of treachery and overreaching attain a cli-
max ; even in war there is a whole science of sowing suspicion among allies,
treason in armies, disaffection or revolt in kingdoms (Manu, VII, 190
sqq, ; 11h. xii, 103).
of the polity which we have outlined, the only polity approved by
Indian science, the keystone was the sovereign. Even in the Vedic age the
prevailing system was monarchical. Nevertheless the Vedas afford evi-
dence of tribes in which the chief authority was exercised by a family, or
even, as in the case of the German nations described in the work of
Tacitus, by a whole body of nobles, who are actually designated kings? .
1 Arth. 36 ; Hopkins, op. cit. p. 178 n. , pp. 293-4 and nn.
2 Arth. 168.
3 Arth. 153-7 ; Mbh. XII, 99, 8.
4 Manu, VIT, 90 sqq. ; Mbh. XII, 95,6 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 227 sqq.
5 Arth. 98 sqq. ; Manu, VII, 155 sqq. ; Formichi, Gl Indiani e la loro scienza
Politica, pp. 89 sqq.
6 Zimmer, Attindisches Leben, pp. 162 sqq.
7 Rhys Davids Buddhist India, pp. 1 sqq. : Jayaswal, An Introduction to Hindu
Polity. pp. 3 sqq.
a
## p. 443 (#481) ############################################
XIX]
POLITY
443
of such ruling oligarchies the age of Buddha furnishes, as is well known, a
number of examples ; such were the Mallas of Kusinārā and the Licchavis
of Vesāli. To these oligarchical communities the growth of the great
kingdoms proved destructive : at the time of Alexander's invasion they had
largely disappeared from eastern Hindustān, and in the Punjab also Porus
was working for their subjugation! The Arthaçāstra (Chaps. 160-1) has
even a policy of compassing their overthrow by internal dissension. Never
theless, a number of them survived through and after the Maurya empire”,
and one of them, that of the Mālavas, handed down to later India its first
persistent era, the so-called Vikrama era, which is still the common era of
northern India.
In the monarchies the king controls the whole administration, and
by his spies3 keeps watch upon every part of it. He is recommended to
check his officials by division and frequent change of functions. Never-
theless, the Indian king is no sultan with the sole obligation of satisfying
his personal caprice. The origin of royalty is the growth of wickedness
and the necessity of chastisement, the virtue of which the Indian writers
celebrate with a real enthusiasm. It is as guardian of the social (includ-
ing domestic and religious) order and defence against anarchical oppression
that the king is entitled to his revenue ; failing to perform this duty, he
takes upon himself a corresponding share of the national sin. Educated
in these precepts among a moralising people, he would have been more
than human had he escaped the obsession of this conception of his duties.
Hence we not seldom hear on royal, as well as on priestly, lips the expres-
sion that the king should be the father of his people. ?
His education is in philosophy, Vedic lore, business, and the science
of polity* : he is also to receive the ordinary instruction in mathematics
and literature! . He must attain to complete control of his passions by
consideration of the errors of famous men in the past. He must never be
off his guard or lacking in force. 10
His occupations are mapped out with a minuteness which in the litera-
ture is a subject of humorous comment11 The day and the night are divided
Jayaswal, op. cit. pp. 1-7
2 See Chapter XXI.
3 Class . fied in Arth. 8-9
4 Ibid. 22 (p. 57), 27 (p. 70),
5 Mbh. XII, 59 and 121-2 ; Manu, VII, 14 sqq. ; Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 135 sqq.
6 Cf. Hopkins, op. cit. p. 87.
? Ibid. pp. 113 sqq. ; Manu, VII, 80.
8 Arth. 1; Manu, VII, 43.
9 The king Khāravela of Kaliàga is educated in writing, arithmetic, law, and all
sciences, Cf. Arth. 2 and Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 108 sqq.
10 Energy uttana, 'alertness' (Hopkins, op. cit. p. 125), is the favourite word.
11 See also chapter XVI, p 373 Arth. 16 ; Manu, VII, 145 sqq. , 217 sqq.
Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 129 sqq.
