Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c10.19

c10.19

In Vedic literature the expression *Sabhā* is used in several senses, for instance, to denote a hall, a house, the gambling hall, and the royal court. In our constitutional sense, there is only one late reference in the Ṛig-Veda, *viz.*, in X.71.10, noticed above. The rise of the Sabhā, therefore, is to be dated like that of the Samiti in the latest period of the Ṛig-Veda. Its career is co-extensive with that of the Samiti. Even during royal and imperial centralisation, as we shall see, the judicial Sabhā of the king preserved traces of its popular origin and retained some important popular features in its administration of justice.