Hindu Administrative Institutions c12.s2.3

c12.s2.3

This feature of local self-government representing a distinct type in itself was a noteworthy feature of ancient Indian administration. There were multifarious institutions and types of government among which we can strike upon two common types. One is communal and the other is territorial. In modern parlance the first is what we call occupational groups and the second the neighbourhood groups. The basis on which these two types of political institutions proceed seems to be through a bond of kinship or ties of blood. This kind of political grouping has been a natural outcome of the conditions then existing. The principle of association was a bond of mutual help and mutual defence. This in course of time became the unit on which political democracy began to rest.² Under this group of kinship we are led into two peculiar institutions at once economic and communal in character. The first is the joint-family and the second various caste *panchayats* which are in substance professional groups. Though an examination of the institution of the joint-family does not directly lie in the province of our survey, still a mention may be made. The word occurs in our extant texts and is explained as *kuṭumbi* or a joint family³ constituting the mother, father, two sons and two daughters-in-law, daughter, wife, guest, and the master of the household. These constitutent members form a joint-family.¹ Professor Jolly takes the view that the position of a son under the Indian law was that of an unemancipated son under the earliest Roman law, while the position of a mother or a father was that of the Roman mother or father under the *patria potestas*. From the verse it is reasonable to believe that the institution was in existence in the days of the *Rāmāyaṇa* as later under the epoch of the *Mahābhārata*. In the *Rāmāyaṇa* there are no texts that go to prove the existence of single families. The sons of Daśaratha lived in a joint-family. Vāli and his brother Sugrīva lived together. Rāvaṇa and his brothers lived together. The same ideal pervades the epic heroes of the *Mahābhārata*. The Pāṇḍavās lived together while Duryodhana and with his one hundred brothers constituted a single family none the less. The *Mahābhārata* which is reckoned a later work than the *Rāmāyaṇa*, which is according to tradition the *ādi kāvya*, there are passages where signs of revolt among the several members of a family are not wanting. Though sons have not divided with their fathers, still a younger brother demands a partition of the joint-property of the family when the elder admonishes the younger, and it is remarked, ‘it is through folly men desire partition; but this creates a loop-hole, and weakens one before his enemies.’ Thus the institution was a safeguard for men of weaker temperaments against many adverse forces in a society not fully settled. The outstanding features of the institution have been and are—there are still survivals found scattered here and there despite the growing spirit of freedom of thought and assertion of individual right—the sharing of the common resources of the family either in its adversity or prosperity.¹