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.
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.
Cambridge History of India - v1
The
king provides in amphitheatres constructed for the occasion dramatic,
boxing, and other contests of men and animals, and also spectacles with
displays of pictured objects of curiosity? - no doubt the private showman
with his pictures of Hades, etc. , was also active -; and not seldom
the streets were lighted up for festivals and it was not penal to stir abroad.
Then there were also the royal processions, when His Majesty went forth
to view his city or to hunt.
In domestic life the joint family system prevails : but it can be
dissolved. Boy and girl attain their majority at the age of sixteen and of
twelve respectively. ' Adoption -- legitimated by the king-is common.
There are the four regular and four irregular forms of marriage, which is
dissoluble by mutual consent or prolonged absence. 10 The wife has
1 See Chapters XIV, pp. 294, 305 ; XXVI ; Fergusson, Hist. of Indian and
Eastern Architecture, index, 8. v. Persepolitan Capitals; Vincent Smith, History of
Fine Art in India and Ceylon, pp. 58 sqq. ; Grunwedel Buddhistische Kunst in Indian,
pp. 16 sqq. and Ch. II.
2 Konow. Ind. Ant. , 1909, pp. 145. 9.
3 Megasth. XXVII, 8-9.
4 Arth. 56.
5 Hopkins, op. cit. pr. 118, 176.
6 Arth, 19 (p. 48).
7 See Hardy in Album Kern, pp. 61. 6, and AÇoka's Rock Edict, IV; also Minu,
IX, 84 and 223, and Hopkins, op. cit. pp, 124-5.
8 Megasth. ΧΧVΙΙ, 16. 7 : έτερα δ' εοίτυη επί τας θυσίας 'έξοδος" τρίτη δ'
επί θηραυ βαλκι'η τις Cf. Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 119-20.
9 Arth. p. 154.
10 Concerning marriage seo Arth. 59. Manu, IX, 76 (absence); IX, 97 (bride-gift).
## p. 434 (#472) ############################################
434
[сн.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
a
>
her dowry and her ornaments, sometimes also her bride-gift, which are her
private property and to a certain extent at her disposal in case of widow-
hood. Ill- usage on either side is punishable. Upon failure of male
issue the husband may after a certain period take other wives (of any class);
but he is required to render justice to all ; on the other hand, a widow is at
liberty to marry again. Orphans are under the guardianship of their
relatives'. The poor and helpless old, and in particular the families
of soldiers and workmen dying during their employment, are regarded
as deserving the king's care? . Concerning the gaạikās or public women,
who were the king's servants, and whose practice and rights were subject to
minute regulation, the Greek writers have told us enough? Offences
against women of all kinds are severely visited, including the actions
of officials in charge of workshops and prisons ; and their various impru-
dences and lapses are subject to a gradation of fines and penalties'.
Refractory wives may be beaten (Manu, VIII, 229).
In totally denying slavery Megasthenes went too far: in fact seven
kinds of slaves were enumerated : but it is laid down that no Ārya
('freeman,' here including the Çūdra) could be enslaved. A man might
sell himself into slavery, and in times of distress children might be so pro-
vided for : also there were captives in war. In all cases the slaves may
purchase his freedom by any earnings acquired irrespective of his master's
service, and ransom from outside cannot be refused. The slave woman
who is taken to her master's bed thereby acquires freedom, as also do her
children.
The progress of literature during the Maurya period is unfortunately
for the most part matter for inference. Only three works, all in their way
important, can with certainty be dated in or near it:
near it: these are the
Arthaçāstra of Chānakya, the Mahābhāshya, Patañjali's commentary on
the grammatical Sītras of Pāṇini, and the Pāli Kathāvatthu. The Vedic
period, including the Brāhmanas and the early Upanishads, was prior to
Buddha, and the same may be said in principle of the Sutras, or manuals
of rites, public and domestic, the Vedāngas, treatises on grammar, phone-
tics, prosody, astronomy, etymology, ritual, whatever may be the date of
the treatises which have come down to us. Nor can the like be denied
regarding the various forms of quasi-secular literature which are named
in works of about this period, the Purāna, or myth, the Itivrilta, or
legend, Ākhyāyikā, or tale, Vabovikya, or dialogue? . Some form of
Vākovīkya
the Mahābhārta and Rāmāyana, the former of which we infer from
1 Manu, VIII, 27.
2 Arth. 19 (p. 47), 91 (p. 246); Mbh. XII, 86, 24.
3 Cf. Arth. 44.
4 Arth. pp. 114, 146, chap. 87. The offence of killing a woman is equal to that
of killing a Brahman: zee Hopkins, The Four Castes, p. 98; Jolly, op. cit. pp. 116-7.
5 See Chapter XVI, p. 373, and Arth. 65.
6 Manu, VII, 415.
7 Lists are given in the Mahābbārata (see Hopkins, J. A. 0. S. , XIII, p. 112).
## p. 435 (#473) ############################################
RITING :
WRITING : LANGUAGE
:
XIX]
435
>
Megasthenes to have been current during this period, belongs also to
an earlier epoch. One philosophical system, the Sārkhya, seems to be
prior to Buddhism : a second, the Vaiçeshika, may have arisen in our
period'. Finally, the canon of the Pāli Buddhism and also that of
the Jains, which is said to have been fixed at Pātaliputra in 313 (312) B. C. ,
and the system of the Lokāyatas Ājivikas, are also in substance pre-
Maurya?
If we may conjecturally assign to this period any definite literary
'
forms, these would be the çāstra and the artificial poetry, or kāvya. The
former, the most characteristic product of the Indian mind, is the formal
exposition of a particular science in dogmatic enunciations accompanied by
a discussion (bhāshya). Such are the grammatical work of Patañjali,
the Arthaçāstra of Chāņakya, the Kāmaçāstra of Vātsyāyana : the
Dharma Çāstra. or Law, followed an older model, that of the metrical
treatise, and the Nyāya Çāstra, or Logic, is a later creation. We can-
pot doubt also that many of the minor sciences (vidyās) and arts
(kalās), which were from earlier times a subject of instruction, had
already attained some systematic literary forms. As regards the artificial
epic, it is true that we have no positive evidence of its existence in Maurya
times. But the Buddhacharita of Açvaghosba, which dates from the first
century A. D. , presents a perfect and stereotyped form, indicating a long
preparation.
That writing was in common use not only for literary purposes,
but also in public business, the edicts of Açoka exist to prove. But this
is by no means all. Epistolary correspondence was perfectly usual", and
written documents were employed in the courts of law) : moreover, the
administration was versed in book-keeping and registration on a large
scale and systematically arranged. And we have already the beginnings
of a study of style and a vocabulary of exegesis”.
Sanskrit remained the language of the Brāhman schools, of public
and private ritual, and also of secular literature, except perhaps in the
case of folk poesy. In the life of every day and also in administration,
furthermore in the sectarian books of the Buddhists and Jains, a vernacular
1 It is known to Açvaghosha (Sūtrālamkāra) in the first century A. D.
2 See Jacobi, Kalpasūtra Introduction,
3 A number of these are mentioned in the Brahmajāla Sutta of the Digha Nikāva.
4 Arth. 28 , also pp. 29 and 38. Strabo (XV, 67 and 73) mentions writing on
cloth.
5 Megasthenes denies written laws. Written documents are well avouched ; see
Manu, VIII, 168.
6 See below, pp. 339-40. In Arth. p. 62, we hear of a Record Room (niban lhapu8i.
takasthāna) in the Treasury.
7 Arth. 28 and 180.
8 On this subject see the discussion in J. R. A. S. (1913), and reff. ; also Prof.
Jacobi's paper Was ist Sanskrit ? in Scientia, XIV.
a
## p. 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.
king provides in amphitheatres constructed for the occasion dramatic,
boxing, and other contests of men and animals, and also spectacles with
displays of pictured objects of curiosity? - no doubt the private showman
with his pictures of Hades, etc. , was also active -; and not seldom
the streets were lighted up for festivals and it was not penal to stir abroad.
Then there were also the royal processions, when His Majesty went forth
to view his city or to hunt.
In domestic life the joint family system prevails : but it can be
dissolved. Boy and girl attain their majority at the age of sixteen and of
twelve respectively. ' Adoption -- legitimated by the king-is common.
There are the four regular and four irregular forms of marriage, which is
dissoluble by mutual consent or prolonged absence. 10 The wife has
1 See Chapters XIV, pp. 294, 305 ; XXVI ; Fergusson, Hist. of Indian and
Eastern Architecture, index, 8. v. Persepolitan Capitals; Vincent Smith, History of
Fine Art in India and Ceylon, pp. 58 sqq. ; Grunwedel Buddhistische Kunst in Indian,
pp. 16 sqq. and Ch. II.
2 Konow. Ind. Ant. , 1909, pp. 145. 9.
3 Megasth. XXVII, 8-9.
4 Arth. 56.
5 Hopkins, op. cit. pr. 118, 176.
6 Arth, 19 (p. 48).
7 See Hardy in Album Kern, pp. 61. 6, and AÇoka's Rock Edict, IV; also Minu,
IX, 84 and 223, and Hopkins, op. cit. pp, 124-5.
8 Megasth. ΧΧVΙΙ, 16. 7 : έτερα δ' εοίτυη επί τας θυσίας 'έξοδος" τρίτη δ'
επί θηραυ βαλκι'η τις Cf. Hopkins, op. cit. pp. 119-20.
9 Arth. p. 154.
10 Concerning marriage seo Arth. 59. Manu, IX, 76 (absence); IX, 97 (bride-gift).
## p. 434 (#472) ############################################
434
[сн.
THE MAURYA EMPIRE
a
>
her dowry and her ornaments, sometimes also her bride-gift, which are her
private property and to a certain extent at her disposal in case of widow-
hood. Ill- usage on either side is punishable. Upon failure of male
issue the husband may after a certain period take other wives (of any class);
but he is required to render justice to all ; on the other hand, a widow is at
liberty to marry again. Orphans are under the guardianship of their
relatives'. The poor and helpless old, and in particular the families
of soldiers and workmen dying during their employment, are regarded
as deserving the king's care? . Concerning the gaạikās or public women,
who were the king's servants, and whose practice and rights were subject to
minute regulation, the Greek writers have told us enough? Offences
against women of all kinds are severely visited, including the actions
of officials in charge of workshops and prisons ; and their various impru-
dences and lapses are subject to a gradation of fines and penalties'.
Refractory wives may be beaten (Manu, VIII, 229).
In totally denying slavery Megasthenes went too far: in fact seven
kinds of slaves were enumerated : but it is laid down that no Ārya
('freeman,' here including the Çūdra) could be enslaved. A man might
sell himself into slavery, and in times of distress children might be so pro-
vided for : also there were captives in war. In all cases the slaves may
purchase his freedom by any earnings acquired irrespective of his master's
service, and ransom from outside cannot be refused. The slave woman
who is taken to her master's bed thereby acquires freedom, as also do her
children.
The progress of literature during the Maurya period is unfortunately
for the most part matter for inference. Only three works, all in their way
important, can with certainty be dated in or near it:
near it: these are the
Arthaçāstra of Chānakya, the Mahābhāshya, Patañjali's commentary on
the grammatical Sītras of Pāṇini, and the Pāli Kathāvatthu. The Vedic
period, including the Brāhmanas and the early Upanishads, was prior to
Buddha, and the same may be said in principle of the Sutras, or manuals
of rites, public and domestic, the Vedāngas, treatises on grammar, phone-
tics, prosody, astronomy, etymology, ritual, whatever may be the date of
the treatises which have come down to us. Nor can the like be denied
regarding the various forms of quasi-secular literature which are named
in works of about this period, the Purāna, or myth, the Itivrilta, or
legend, Ākhyāyikā, or tale, Vabovikya, or dialogue? . Some form of
Vākovīkya
the Mahābhārta and Rāmāyana, the former of which we infer from
1 Manu, VIII, 27.
2 Arth. 19 (p. 47), 91 (p. 246); Mbh. XII, 86, 24.
3 Cf. Arth. 44.
4 Arth. pp. 114, 146, chap. 87. The offence of killing a woman is equal to that
of killing a Brahman: zee Hopkins, The Four Castes, p. 98; Jolly, op. cit. pp. 116-7.
5 See Chapter XVI, p. 373, and Arth. 65.
6 Manu, VII, 415.
7 Lists are given in the Mahābbārata (see Hopkins, J. A. 0. S. , XIII, p. 112).
## p. 435 (#473) ############################################
RITING :
WRITING : LANGUAGE
:
XIX]
435
>
Megasthenes to have been current during this period, belongs also to
an earlier epoch. One philosophical system, the Sārkhya, seems to be
prior to Buddhism : a second, the Vaiçeshika, may have arisen in our
period'. Finally, the canon of the Pāli Buddhism and also that of
the Jains, which is said to have been fixed at Pātaliputra in 313 (312) B. C. ,
and the system of the Lokāyatas Ājivikas, are also in substance pre-
Maurya?
If we may conjecturally assign to this period any definite literary
'
forms, these would be the çāstra and the artificial poetry, or kāvya. The
former, the most characteristic product of the Indian mind, is the formal
exposition of a particular science in dogmatic enunciations accompanied by
a discussion (bhāshya). Such are the grammatical work of Patañjali,
the Arthaçāstra of Chāņakya, the Kāmaçāstra of Vātsyāyana : the
Dharma Çāstra. or Law, followed an older model, that of the metrical
treatise, and the Nyāya Çāstra, or Logic, is a later creation. We can-
pot doubt also that many of the minor sciences (vidyās) and arts
(kalās), which were from earlier times a subject of instruction, had
already attained some systematic literary forms. As regards the artificial
epic, it is true that we have no positive evidence of its existence in Maurya
times. But the Buddhacharita of Açvaghosba, which dates from the first
century A. D. , presents a perfect and stereotyped form, indicating a long
preparation.
That writing was in common use not only for literary purposes,
but also in public business, the edicts of Açoka exist to prove. But this
is by no means all. Epistolary correspondence was perfectly usual", and
written documents were employed in the courts of law) : moreover, the
administration was versed in book-keeping and registration on a large
scale and systematically arranged. And we have already the beginnings
of a study of style and a vocabulary of exegesis”.
Sanskrit remained the language of the Brāhman schools, of public
and private ritual, and also of secular literature, except perhaps in the
case of folk poesy. In the life of every day and also in administration,
furthermore in the sectarian books of the Buddhists and Jains, a vernacular
1 It is known to Açvaghosha (Sūtrālamkāra) in the first century A. D.
2 See Jacobi, Kalpasūtra Introduction,
3 A number of these are mentioned in the Brahmajāla Sutta of the Digha Nikāva.
4 Arth. 28 , also pp. 29 and 38. Strabo (XV, 67 and 73) mentions writing on
cloth.
5 Megasthenes denies written laws. Written documents are well avouched ; see
Manu, VIII, 168.
6 See below, pp. 339-40. In Arth. p. 62, we hear of a Record Room (niban lhapu8i.
takasthāna) in the Treasury.
7 Arth. 28 and 180.
8 On this subject see the discussion in J. R. A. S. (1913), and reff. ; also Prof.
Jacobi's paper Was ist Sanskrit ? in Scientia, XIV.
a
## p. 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.
