Ancient Indian Colonies in the Far East (Vol. I: Champa; Vol. II: Suvarnadvipa) v2.c22.62

v2.c22.62

The treatise entitled Corporate Life in Ancient India by Mr. R. C. Majumdar, is written in a detached and historical spirit. The author knows German and has arranged his material in a German rather than an English fashion. Mr. Majumdar's discussion of the kingless states of ancient India in Chapter II is full and excellent. Such states were numerous in the Panjab at the time of Alexander's invasion in the fourth century B.C., and their existence in various parts of upper India may be traced until the fifth century after Christ. Some of them were oligarchical. The author appropriately illustrates the system of Government in the Lichchhavi state of Tirhut by comparison with the Cleisthenian institutions at Athens......Mr. Majumdar ascribes the decline and ultimate extinction of the republics to the effects of foreign invasions and the levelling enforced by the more powerful paramount dynasties which arose from time to time. These causes undoubtedly operated, but the gradual absorption of the large Mongolian element which existed in the early population of Northern India must have had much to do with the failure of the republican constitutions to survive or to become the source of further developments. The author justly observes that “it requires great effort to believe, even when sufficient evidence is forthcoming, that institutions, which we are accustomed to look upon as of western growth had also flourished in India long ago." Chapter IV, dealing with corporate activities in religious life, gives a valuable analysis of the constitution of the Buddhist Church, "one of the most perfect ever witnessed in any age or country." The weak point in the organisation was the lack of any effectual central authority, but that statement, generally correct, should be qualified by the observation that for a few years about 240 B. C. Asoka openly assumed the position of head of the Church. The examination of the theory of the evolution of caste in Chapter V is illuminating. The Vedic Brahmans were "not bound together by ties of birth," and "authentic texts repeatedly declare that it is knowledge, not descent, that makes a Brahman." The Vedic "guilds of priests" developed slowly into the close Brahman caste or, more accurately, group of castes, which has been so prominent in India during the last two thousand years. Marriages in princely families between Brahmans and ladies of other castes are recorded as late as in the ninth and tenth centuries after Christ. The author is to be congratulated on his freedom from the literary and other prejudices which have often obscured the story of the origins of the caste institution. In his concluding pages he quotes interesting passages which prove that the Indians of the olden time knew how to combine for charitable and social purposes, including public amusements. Mr. Majumdar's book gives promise of further well-designed researches calculated to throw much light upon the history of ancient India.