The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s9.82

v1.c19.s9.82

A *gāma* might apparently mean anything from a group of two or three houses¹⁰ to an indefinite number. It was the generic, inclusive term for an inhabited settlement, not possessing the fortifications of a *nagara*, or the ruler’s palace of a *rājadhānī*. The number of inhabitants in the *gāmas* of the Jātaka tales varied from 30 to 1000 families. And family (*kula*), it must be remembered, was a more comprehensive unit than it is with us, including not only father and mother, children and grandparents, but also the wives and children of the sons. *Gāma*, it is true, might be used to differentiate a class of settlement, as in the compound *gāma-nigama*, ‘villages and towns’; but it is also used in the wider, looser sense of group as opposed to single house. For instance, a fire, when starting in a house, may extend to the whole *gāma*¹. When a *bhikkhu* leaves park, forest, or mountain to seek alms, he ‘enters the *gāma*²,’ whether it be a neighbouring village, or the suburbs of great Sāvatthī³.