State and Government in Ancient India c13.16

c13.16

It is argued that to describe these states as republics or democracies would be hardly justifiable. Power was vested in these states not in the whole body of the citizens but in a small aristocratic class. Thus among the Yaudheyas, we definitely know that the government was vested in a college of 5,000 persons, each of whom was required to present an elephant to the state.¹ It is clear that the governing class of this state consisted of a rich aristocracy, members of which could afford to present an elephant to the state; common people had no voice in its administration. The same was also the case with the Śākyas and Koliyas; the question of peace or war, which vitally affected the fortunes of the man in the street, was decided there by the Śākya and Koliya aristocrats, (*rājās*), who were a few hundreds in number; the commoners like the farmers and the workers had merely to wait for and carry out the decisions of the privileged order.