State and Government in Ancient India c13.111

c13.111

In the Buddhist Saṁgha the voting was sometimes done by the secret method (*gūḷhaka*), sometimes by the whispering method (*sakarṇajapakam*) and sometimes by the open method (*vivaṭakam*).¹ Voting tickets were in the form of sticks of different colours and a person called *śalākā-grāhaka* collected them; later they were counted by the President. The technical term for vote was *chhanda* which meant free choice. We may well presume that the above procedure in the Buddhist Saṁgha was followed in the Republican Assemblies, since the latter served as the model for the former.