Provinces were subdivided into districts for purposes of administration, and a group of officials worked in each district. The group consisted of three major officials, the pradesika, the rajuka and the yukta. These in turn were assisted by others. The status of the rajuka was subordinate to that of the pradesika.
Among the duties of the pradesika was included that of making a tour every five years to inspect the entire administration of areas under his control. The rajuka belonged to the department of administration responsible for surveying and assessing land. The yukta mentioned in Rock Edict III appears to have been a subordinate official. The duties of the yukta largely comprised secretarial work and accounting.
There was an intermediate level of administration between the district level and that of the village. The unit here was formed by a group of five or ten villages. The two important officials concerned with the administration of this unit were the gopa and the sthanika. The gopa worked as an accountant to the unit. The tax was collected by the sthanika who worked directly under the pradesika.
Village Administration:
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Village (grama) was the smallest unit of administration and enjoyed autonomy to a great extent. The head of a village was called gramika who was assisted by gram- viddhas or Village elders’. Gramika was not a paid servant; he was elected by the people.
Above the gramika did a gopa who was the head of ten villages, and the sthanika who controlled a janapada or a district comprise one hundred villages? Most of the disputes of the village were settled by the gramika in open panchayat.
Municipal Administration:
A number of cities are mentioned in the edicts of Asoka such as Pataliputra, Taxila, Ujjaini, Tosali, Suvarnagiri, Samapa, Isila, Kausambi, etc., and the Ar- thashastra devotes a full chapter (II. 36) to the ‘Rules for the City Superintendence’. Megasthenes has described in detail the administrative set-up of Pataliputra and it is presumed that, by and large, similar municipal administration would be applicable to other cities as well.
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There was local self-government with some autonomy. The important affairs of the city of Pataliputra were conducted by a body consisting of thirty Commissioners (astynomi or ‘City Council’) who had formed themselves into six boards of five members each. The first board looked provided raw material, fixed the wages and second board was for the visitors, specially the foreign tourists, who came to Pataliputra for business. it arranged for their food, stay and transport and provided all possible help.
If a foreigner died, his dead body was properly disposed of and his belongings were handed over to his heirs. The third carefully recorded in the register. The fourth board kept a vigil on the manufactured goods and the sale of commodities.
It also ensured that the items were not adulterated. The fifth board regulated trade, issued licensees to the merchants and checked their weights and measurements. The sixth board collected tithes which was a tenth of all the good sold in the city.
The members of the City Council were not elected but appointed; still these cities enjoyed some autonomy. Taxila, for example, was nigama and issued its own coins. The City Council had appointed officers to look after the public welfare such as maintenance and repair of roads, markets, hospitals, educational institutions, harbours, temples, sanitation, water supply, etc. The officer in charge of the city was nagaraka (Town Prefect). It is doubtful if any of the contemporary Greek cities were so well governed.
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The Mauryan are credited with having been the pioneers who evolved elaborate rules for agriculture, animal husbandry, trade, commerce, education, and army and so on. They could rule over a vast empire, the biggest in the contemporary world, with peace and tranquility for more than a century.
It was a highly organised administration under a powerful bureaucracy at the centre with enough provision for local self-government. The government did not only collect revenues but involved itself in production and commercial activities. The welfare of the subjects was its primary aim. The Mauryan system of administration endured without much change even after their empire disappeared.