State and Government in Ancient India c14.4

c14.4

A perusal of the Vedic literature makes it quite evident that Popular Assemblies controlling the kings of the numerous small states with which Afghanistan and the Punjab were then studded, were a prominent feature of the Vedic polity. The average state of the Ṛigvedic period consisted of only a few square miles like the city state of ancient Greece. It had a capital, not much larger than the few dozen villages comprised in it. Villages had their own popular asemblies known as *sabhās* and the capital had the Central Assembly for the whole state, which was called a *samiti*.