India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s6.15

c12.s6.15

These social formations indicate a vigorous movement to absorb in the Hindu society elements that were at one time outside the Aryan pail. In Pāṇini's time social movements of this type were in brisk operation as evidenced by certain words in the *Ashṭādhyāyī*. Sometimes even after the transition of a particular people from the *Vrāta* stage to that of a *Saṅgha*, pockets of *Vrāta* soldiery continued to exist. This was true of the Andhaka-Vṛishṇi *Saṅgha*, about which Kṛishṇa says that 'contingents, 18,000 strong, are organised still as *Vrātās* in our *Kula* organisation' (*ashṭādaśa-sahasrāṇi vrātānāṁ santi naḥ kule, Sabhāparva*, 13.55).