India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s5.3

c12.s5.3

*SANGHA*—We have seen above that Kātyāyana takes *Saṅgha* as a form of government distinct from *Ekarāja*, where sovereignty vested in one (*ekādhīna*), and not in the many as in the *Saṅgha* (*gaṇādhīna*). This meaning is also borne out by the rules of Pāṇini. Pāṇini speaks of *Saṅgha* as a generic term, applied to the following. Firstly, *Saṅgha* means 'a multitude', as in the expression *grāmya-paśu-saṅgha*, a herd of domestic cattle. In the same sense it is also applied to a multitude of human beings. Secondly, a *Saṅgha* was a term for a *Nikāya*, which is defined by Pāṇini as a corporate body where the distinction of upper and lower does not exist (*Saṅghe chānauttarādharye*, III.3.42). This applied to a religious *Saṅgha* functioning as a fraternity without distinctions of high (*uttara*) and low (*adhara*). Thirdly, there is the *sūtra*, *Saṅgh-odghau gaṇa-praśaṁsayoḥ* (III.3.86), which speaks of the political *Saṅgha* technically known as *Gaṇa*. *Saṅgha* and *Gaṇa* were used as synonymous words for a republic. Pāṇini speaks of the Yaudheyas as a *Saṅgha*, whereas they refer to themselves as a *Gaṇa* on their coins, albeit in the post-Pāṇinian period.