DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

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herdsmen-under observation, proves that its state had no secure class basis
beyond the bureaucracy. The peculation of bureaucratic officials were becoming
increasingly difficult to check. “The procurator fiscal (samaharti) looks first to
his own profit, and then to the king’s or destroys the king’s gain altogether. In
taking the property of others (as taxes) he diverts it according to his own sweet
will.” (Arth. 8.4) Three whole chapters Arth 2.7-10 are devoted to the detection
and punishment of corrupt officials, with the helpless confession that it was as
difficult to trace their embezzlement as to discover when a fish drank of the
water through which it swam.
At the root of it all was the economic fact that Magadhan rule had now expanded
into far less profitable country, for no other soil compared in fertility with the
Gangetic valley, particularly when it was first cleared of its forest. The ideal
janapada land is described in Arth 6.1as follows:
“With fortifiable hills in the middle and on the frontier : able to support itself
able to support other (districts) in times of need. Easy to defend, easily providing
the necessities of life hating (the king’s) enemies, and with neighbours not too
strong. Free from swaps, rocks, salt-impregnated land uneven land, thorn, thickets,
savage beasts, and savage tribesmen. Lovely, furnished with sita crown lands,
mineral wealth, elephant forests. Fit for cattle, human beings, with well guarded
herds, rich in herd beasts, not watered by the rainfall alone. Well furnished with
waterways and roads and with trade goods of great value and variety, able to
bear the army and taxes. With peasants who are dutiful, lords that are childish, a
population mostly of the lower castes and with men who are loyal and clean
lived – Such is the perfection as to the janapada.”
This might fit the very best portions of Bihar, UP, Punjab, perhaps West Bengal,
and stretches of coastal Gujarat but hardly any other part of the country. Pre-
Mauryan kings might have found such districts still open to conquest and
settlement, but Candragupta’s army certainly trod worse territory. The equally
fertile but drier Punjab, occupied by earlier paura-janapadas, was not to be
further exploited without costly irrigation. The south was forest-covered rock,
where the top heavy Magadhan administration of sita villages would be far too
expensive.