The Mauryan Empire was one of the largest in the whole of the ancient world. It ushered in a centralized form of government. From the Arthashastra Ashokan inscription and from the fragments available from Megasthense's account there have a good idea about the various aspects of administration, economy, society and religion of the people. The king was head of the state. He had judicial, legislative and executive powers. The king issued what was known as sasana or ordinances. The edicts of Ashoka are examples of the sansanas. The king was assisted in administration by a council of ministers (mantriparishad). Besides there were some referred as Adhyakshas (superintendents).
Kautilya refers to a large number of superintendents like those of gold,
store houses, commerce, agriculture, ships, cows, horses, chariots, infantry,
the city etc. In the Maurya administration there was an officer called yukta who
was perhaps the subordinate officer in charge of the revenues of the king.
The rajjukas were officers responsible for land measurement and fixing their
boundaries. They were also given power to punish the guilty and set free the
innocents. Another officer of the Mauryan Administration was pradeshikas. Some
scholars think that he was responsible for the collection of revenue while
others think that he was the provincial governor. The Mauryan Empire was divided
into provinces. During the reigns of Bindusara, Ashoka was posted at Ujjain as
Governor of the Avanti region while his Brother Susima was posted at Taxila as
the governor of the north-western provinces. Provinces were subdivided into the
district each of these was further divided into groups of the villages and the
final unit of administration was the village. The important provinces were
directly under kumara (princes). According to the Junagarh rock inscription of
Rudradaman, Saurashtra was governed by vaisya Pushyagupta at the time of
Chandragupta Maurya and by Yavana-raja Tushaspa at the time of Ashoka both
provincial governors.
A group of officials worked in each district. The pradeshika was the head of
district administration who toured the entire district every five years to
inspect the administration of areas five years to impact the administration of
areas under his control. The rajjuka was responsible for surveying and assessing
the land, fixing its rent and record keeping besides judicial functions. The
duties of yukta largely comprised secretarial work collection and accounting of
revenue etc. There were intermediate levels of administration between district
and that of village. This unit comprised five to ten or more villages. The
village was the smallest unit of administration. The head of the village was
called gramika who was assisted in village administration by village elders. It
is difficult to say whether the gramika was a paid servant or was elected by the
village people. The villages enjoyed considerable autonomy. Most of the disputes
of the village were settled by gramika with the help of village assembly. The
Arthashastra mentions a wide range of scales in salary, the highest being 48000
panas and the lowest 60 panas.