State and Government in Ancient India c9.s1.19

c9.s1.19

Side by side with monarchical and oligarchical states, there also existed republican governments in ancient India as early as the Vedic age. A passage in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* states that the people in the vicinity of the Himalayas like the Uttarakurus and the Uttaramadras have a *virāṭ* (kingless) type of the state and are, therefore, called *vi-rāṭ* or kingless. When it is remembered how the same passage earlier refers to the *kings* of the easterners and the southerners and the titles that were borne by them, and how it carefully states that it is the *people* among the Uttarakurus and Uttaramadras,—not their *kings*,—who were called *virāṭ*, it becomes quite certain that these people had a non-monarchical or republican form of government. This conclusion is further strengthened when we remember how Greek authorities tell us that in the territory above referred to, republican types of states were the order of the day as late as the time of Alexander the Great. Whether the non-monarchical states of ancient India were also republican will be discussed later in Chap. VI.