India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s5.4

c12.s5.4

*THE RELIGIOUS SANGHA*—Pāṇini mentions the religious *Saṅgha* as *Nikāya*, as we have seen. The religious *Saṅgha* was a perfect copy of the political model except in one important respect. We shall presently see that in the Kshatriya tribes organised as *Saṅghas*, the political power vested in the hands of those families which were eligible for regular coronation (*abhisheka-maṅgala*) and consecrated to rulership by that ceremony (*abhishikta-vaṁśyas*). Other castes in the *Gaṇa* did not share the political power, although they owed allegiance to the *Janapada* and the *Janapadins* (IV.3.100). This distinction between castes did not obtain in the sphere of religious *Saṅgha* based on equality. In fact, the different orders in the religious *Saṅgha* or Church were known as *Nikāyas*, of which the Buddhist *Saṅgha* in course of time developed eighteen. Not only Buddha, but other religious teachers who were his contemporaries, *e.g.* Purāṇa Kassapa, Makkhali Gosāla, and others have been called *Saṅghino*, heads of *Saṅghas*, *Gaṇino*, heads of *Gaṇas* and *Gaṇāchāriyo*, teachers of *Gaṇas*. The *Saṅgha* spirit in Pāṇini's time had influenced every sphere of public life, political, economic, religious, social and educational. Like the political *Saṅghas*, even *Gotras* and *Charaṇas* had their *aṅka* and *lakshaṇa*.