The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.148

v1.c17.148

In curious contrast with the comparative wealth of information regarding the king, is the silence of our texts on the assembly of the people. The *samiti* or the *sabhā* is not rarely mentioned in these texts; and we cannot assume that the assembly had lost its power, though it may have diminished in importance. Even this, however, we cannot absolutely assert; for we hear so often of expelled kings that we must believe that the people were far from obedient to a yoke which rested on them too heavily. But there must have been in the extension of the realm a tendency to diminish the possibility of frequent meetings of the *samiti*, and accordingly some diminution in its control over the state. At any rate, there are indications, if no conclusive proof, that there was growing up within the members of the *sabhā* a distinction between those who attended only at the great meetings and the *sabhāsads*, or ‘assessors,’ who attended regularly; and it may be that for judicial purposes the activity of the *sabhā* was entrusted to a smaller number, the Homeric *gerontes*, unless indeed we are to trace judicial functions to an origin in voluntary arbitration¹.