How empires were run

"How do you run an empire with no phones, no internet and no trains?" You split it into smaller and smaller pieces, each with its own officers, right down to the village. Almost every early Indian kingdom did this.

The Satavāhanas divided their empire into āḥāras (divisions), each with its ministers (amātyas). Below them were villages, each under a headman, the grāmika. District governors (pradeśhikas) handled justice and administration, and they often asked important local people first: bankers, caravan leaders, artisans and scribes. Cities had their own governors for taxes and order.

Between about 300 and 800 CE, power was decentralised (spread out). The pieces had different names in the north and south:

The Guptas kept Kauṭilya's pattern: the mantri headed the civil government, with the army commander, a general and the head of the palace guard. They added a new post, the minister of peace and war (sāndhivigrahika). Local and provincial officers were called kumārāmātyas. The Damodarpur copper plates (under Kumaragupta I) show a district office of five: the head district officer, the chief banker, the chief caravan trader, the chief artisan, and the chief of revenue collection.

The Pallavas (about 275–897 CE) mixed a strong king with local self-rule. They gave tax-free land grants to villages called Brahmadeya. Village assemblies had small committees, variyams, for jobs like irrigation, gardens and temples.

The Chālukyas of Badami (about 543–753 CE) worked in a similar way. They gave land to Brahmin settlements called agrahārams; some, such as Aihole and Badami, became centres of learning.

The fight for Kannauj. Kannauj (in today's Uttar Pradesh), capital of the Gurjara-Pratihāras, was so prized that three powers fought over it: the Gurjara-Pratihāras, Pālas and Rāṣhṭrakūṭas. This is the tripartite struggle ('three-sided'). All three ran their kingdoms the same way: a king, then provinces, districts and largely self-reliant villages.

The imperial Cholas (9th–11th century CE) had an efficient system:

• maṇḍalams (provinces), then
• valanāḍus (districts), then
• nāḍus (groups of villages), then
• urs (villages).

Village assemblies did almost everything locally: collected revenue, managed land, irrigation and roads, kept records and settled disputes. They did not depend on the government.

Voting with a pot. The Uttaramerur inscription of Parantaka I (10th century), in the Vaikuṇṭha Perumal temple in Kanchipuram district, Tamil Nadu, describes the kuḍavolai or 'ballot pot':

• names of eligible candidates were written on palm leaves and put in a big pot;
• at a public gathering, often at the temple, a young child drew the leaves one by one;
• those chosen formed committees (variyams): the tank committee for irrigation, one for justice, one for collecting taxes.

The rules even said candidates must have "honest earnings" and a "pure" mind.