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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s2: 2. India in the Buddha's Time; The Clans

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s2

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English

2. India in the Buddha's Time; The Clans

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There is no chapter or even paragraph in the early Pāli books describing the political conditions of North India during the lifetime of the Buddha. But there are a considerable number of incidental references, all the more valuable perhaps because they are purely incidental, that, if collected and arranged, give us a picture, no doubt imperfect, but still fairly correct as far as it goes, of the general conditions, as they appeared to the composers of the paragraphs in which the incidental references occur. They were collected in the present writer's *Buddhist India*; and to that work the reader is referred for a fuller account. Considerations of space render it possible to state here only the more important of the conclusions which these references compel us to draw.

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Of these the most far-reaching, and in some respects the most surprising, is the fact that we find not only one or two monarchies, and several kingdoms of lesser importance—like German duchies or the kingdoms in England at the time of the Heptarchy—but also a number of republics; some with complete, some with a more or less modified independence; and one or two of very considerable power. This reminds us of the political situation at about the same period in Greece. We shall find a similar analogy, due to similar causes, in other matters also. If not pressed too far the analogy will be as useful as it is certainly interesting.

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The following is a list of the republics actually referred to by name in the oldest Pāli records. Some mentioned by Megasthenes are added to it.

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1. The Sākiyas, capital Kapilavatthu
2. The Bulis, capital Allakappa
3. The Kālāmas, capital Kesaputta
4. The Bhaggas, capital on Sumsumāra Hill
5. The Koliyas, capital Rāmagāma
6. The Mallas, capital Pāvā
7. The Mallas, capital Kusinārā
8. The Moriyas, capital Pipphalivana
9. The Videhas, capital Mithilā
10. The Licchavis, capital Vesālī
11–15. Tribes, as yet unidentified, mentioned by Megasthenes

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Nos. 1–10 occupied in the sixth century B.C. the whole country east of Kosala between the mountains and the Ganges. Those mentioned, as is reported in other authors, by Megasthenes seem to have dwelt in his time on the sea-coast of the extreme west of India north of the gulf of Cutch¹. It is naturally in relation to the Sākiyas that we have the greatest amount of detail. Their territory included the lower slopes of the Himālayas, and the glorious view of the long range of snowy peaks is visible, weather permitting, from every part of the land. We do not know its boundaries or how far it extended up into the hills or down into the plains. But the territory must have been considerable. We hear of a number of towns besides the capital—Chātumā, Sāmagāma, Khomadussa, Silāvatī, Medaḷumpa, Nagaraka, Ulumpa, Devadaha, and Sakkara. And according to an ancient tradition preserved in the Commentary on the Dīgha² there were 80,000 the clan. This number (it is noteworthy that the number 84,000 was not chosen) would, allowing for dependents, mean a population of at least half a million. It would be absurd to take this tradition as a correct, or as an official enumeration. We do not even know who first made the calculation. But it would be equally absurd deliberately to ignore it. It is at least interesting to find that even as late as Buddhaghosa the traditional estimate of the number of the Sākiyans was still, in spite of the temptation to magnify the extent of the ‘kingdom’ which the Buddha renounced, so limited and so reasonable as this.

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¹ M'Crindle, *Ancient India as described by Megasthenes*, p. 144, cf. p. 156.

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² See Rh.D., *Dialogues of the Buddha*, I, 147.

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The administrative business of the clan, and also the more important judicial acts, were carried out in public assembly, at which young and old were alike present¹. The meetings were held in a mote-hall—a mere roof supported by pillars, without walls. It is called *santhāgāra*, a technical term never used of the council chamber of kings².

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¹ *D.* 1, 91.

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² See the passages quoted at *J.P.T.S.*, 1909, 65.

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We have no account of the manner in which the proceedings were conducted in the Sākiya mote-hall. But in the *Mahā-Govinda Suttanta* there is an account of a palaver in Sakka’s heaven, evidently modelled more or less on the proceedings in a clan meeting. All are seated in a specified order. After the president has laid the proposed business before the assembly others speak upon it, and Recorders take charge of the unanimous decision arrived at³. The actions of gods are drawn in imitation of those of men. We may be sure that the composers and repeaters of this story, themselves for the most part belonging to the free clans (and, if not, to neighbouring clans familiar with tribal meetings) would make use of their knowledge of what was constantly done at the mote-hall assemblies. This is confirmed by the proceedings adopted in the rules observed at formal meetings of the Chapters of the Buddhist Order. Quite a number of cases are given in the Canon Law⁴; and in no single case, apparently, is there question of deciding the point at issue by voting on a motion moved. Either the decision is regarded as unanimous; or, if difference of opinion is manifest, then the matter is referred for arbitration to a committee of referees⁵. It is even quite possible that certain of the technical terms found in the Rules of the Order (*ñatti* for ‘motion,’ *ubbāhikā* for ‘reference to arbitration,’ etc.), are taken from those in use at the mote-halls of the free clans. But however that may be, we are justified by this evidence in concluding that the method of procedure generally adopted in the mote-halls was not, as in modern parlia-ments, by voting on a motion, but rather as just above explained.

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³ Translated in *Dialogues*, vol. ii, pp. 259–264.

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⁴ Translated in Rhys Davids’ and Oldenberg’s *Vinaya Texts*. See especially vol. iii, pp. 44 ff.

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⁵ *Vinaya Texts*, iii, pp. 49 ff.

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A single chief (how or for what period chosen we do not know) was elected as office holder, presiding over the Senate, and, if no senate were in session, over the state. He bore the title of *Rāja* which in this connexion does not mean king, but rather something like the Roman *consul*, or the Greek *archōn*. We hear at one time that Bhaddiya, a young cousin of the Buddha was ‘rāja’¹, at another that the Buddha’s father Suddhodana (elsewhere spoken of as a simple clansman, Suddhodana the Sākiyan), held that rank².

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¹ ^1 *Vinaya* II, 181.

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² ^2 *Dīgha* II, 52.

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We hear of mote-halls at some of the other towns besides the capital, Kapilavatthu. And no doubt all the more important places had them. The local affairs of each village were carried on in open assembly of the householders held in the groves which, then as now, formed so distinctive a feature in the long and level alluvial plain.

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The clan subsisted on the produce of their rice fields and their cattle. The villages were of grouped, not scattered, huts on the margin of the rice field. The cattle wandered in harvest time, under the charge of a village herdsman, through the adjoining forest (of which the village groves were a remnant), and over which the Sākiyan peasantry had common rights. Men of certain special crafts, most probably not Sākiyans by birth—carpenters, smiths, and potters for instance—had villages of their own ; and so also had the Brāhmans whose services were often in request for all kinds of magic. The villages were separated one from another by forest jungle, the remains of the Great Wood (the *Mahāvana*), portions of which are so frequently mentioned as still surviving throughout the clanships. The jungle was infested from time to time by robbers, sometimes runaway slaves. But we hear of no crime (and there was probably not very much) in the villages themselves—each of them a tiny self-governed republic.

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Tradition tells that the neighbouring clan, the Koliyas, were closely related by descent with the Sākiyas³; but we are not told much about the former. Five of their townships besides the capital are referred to by name:—Halidda-vasana¹, Sajjanela², Sāpūga³, Uttara⁴, and Kakkara-patta⁵. Every Koliyan was a Vyagghapajja by surname, just as every Sākiyan was a Gotama; and in tradition the name of their capital Rāmagāma, so called after the Rāma who founded it, is once given as either Kolanagara or Vyagghapajja⁶. The central authorities of the clan were served by a body of peons or police, distinguished, as by a kind of uniform, by a special form of head-dress⁷. These men had a bad reputation for extortion and violence. In the other clans we are told only of ordinary servants. The tradition that the Koliyans and Sākiyans built a dam over the river Rohinī which separated their territories, and that they afterwards quarrelled over the distribution of the store of water⁸, may very well be founded on fact.

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³ ^3 *Sumaṅgala* I, 258 ff.

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¹ *M.* I, 387; *S.* V, 115.

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² *A.* II, 62.

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³ *A.* II, 194.

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⁴ *S.* IV, 340.

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⁵ *A.* IV, 281.

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⁶ *Sum.* I, 262.

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⁷ *S.* IV, 341.

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⁸ *Jāt.* V, 412–416.

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Of the form of government in the Vajjian confederacy, comprising the Licchavis, the Videhas, and other clans, we have two traditions, Jain and Buddhist⁹. They are not very clear, and do not refer to the same matters, the Jain being on military affairs, while the Buddhist refers to judicial procedure.

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⁹ Jacobi, *Jaina Sūtras*, I, xii.

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