The Colas c26.8

c26.8

Social life was dominated by these innumerable groups, and the individual did not lack opportunities for self-expression. By birth, residence and occupation, and sometimes by choice, he was a member of one or more of these corporate bodies, each devoted to a specific local purpose. Mutual adjustment among these groups was largely a matter of good-will. We do not come across many instances of intercession by government or by private parties for the regulation of group-relations. And there is no evidence in the works of the jurists that speculation on this fascinating aspect of jurisprudence ever advanced far in India. If these groups had acted in the spirit of enforcing their rights strictly and straining them to their utmost limits, the relations among them would easily have become too complicated to be settled without the aid of an intricate and nicely thought out system of positive law. The groups were there all over the land for several generations; but they did not give rise to any attempt at a precise definition of their rights and relations. Much must have been left to the play of good-will on all sides.