State and Government in Ancient India c13.32

c13.32

We can, therefore, legitimately describe the ancient Gaṇa states as republics in the same sense in which the standard works on the political science describe the states of Athens, Sparta or Venice as republics, remembering at the same time that they were not democracies of the modern type, where the franchise is vested in as large a number of citizens as possible. Political power was mainly in the hands of the Kshatriyas. In ancient Greece, there was often a conflict between aristocracy, which wielded the power, and the common people, who wanted to have it. We do not know whether there were such conflicts in ancient India.