Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c10.22

c10.22

§ 16. The Samiti and Sabhā were not the only popular institutions of the Vedic times. The religious life was organised through the **Vidatha assembly**,¹ which had existed even earlier² than the Samiti. It seems to have been the parent folk-assembly from which the Sabhā, Samiti and Senā differentiated, for we find the **Vidatha associated with civil, military and religious functions (Roth).³** The **Senā or the Army**, which was in early times the **nation-in-arms**, was regarded as a body by itself and evidently as a constitutional unit: