State and Government in Ancient India c14.s2.3

c14.s2.3

Neither the king nor the *samiti*, therefore, claimed or exercised any legislative functions in the Vedic period; and the same continued to be the case down to the age of the Smṛitis. This need not surprise us. For in the West also early philosophers like Plato did not regard legislation as a function of the ideal government. It was held that no actual man or group of men could ever possess so much of the spirit of true political science as is embodied in written laws and national customs of the people, which therefore must be obeyed unquestionably.¹