State and Government in Ancient India c14.s2.2

c14.s2.2

The modern reader will be surprised to learn that neither the king nor the *samitis* claimed and exercized legislative powers in the Vedic period. In the modern age, laws as enactments of the sovereign legislature, are becoming all powerful, gradually displacing the customary, the traditional and the case law. Such, however, was not the case in the ancient times. Laws were either sacred or secular; if the former, they were based upon the sacred texts, if the latter upon the customs and traditions. Neither the king nor the *samiti* nor the Central Assembly, it was felt, had any jurisdiction in the matter. If the state had ever proceeded to bring about a forcible change in the customary law, it would have been overthrown in a very short time. Traditional law was as sacred as the divine law. Of course it also did change in the course of time; but the change was gradually and inperceptibly brought about by the silent operation of custom and not by the noisy process of legislation. A deliberate change in the customary law at the dictation of a legislature, it was apprehended, would spell disaster for the community.