Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/95

Rh whom were called mahâmâtras, and the lower ranks were known as yuklas. When a mahâmâtra or yukta was assigned to a. special department, his sphere of duty was indicated by a preﬁx to the generic title. The less civilized tribes on the frontiers and in the jungles were governed by their own chiefs subject to the general control of the paramount power, and we may be assured that large portions of the empire were administered by local hereditary Râjâs, who would have been left very much to their own devices as long as they supplied the men and money demanded by their suzerain. But the inscriptions, with one exception, do not mention such Rajﬁs in the settled provinces, and the view concerning them expressed above is based on the general course of Indian history.

The authorities, that is to say, Megasthenes, Chânakya, and the edicts, rather seem to imply that all the work of administration was done by Crown officials. The princely Vieeroys stood at the head of the bureaucracy. Four of them—the Princes of Taxila, Ujjain, Tosali, and Suvarnagiri—are mentioned in the edicts, and there may have been others. The Vice-royalties of Taxila and Ujjain are known also from