Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c12.2

c12.2

§ 18. Hindu Republics are another illustration of the communal self-governing habits of the post-Vedic age, referred to in our last paragraph. The early Vedas know only monarchy. Departure from this normal constitution was made in post-Vedic times, and, as Megasthenes also records the tradition, '*sovereignty* (kingship) *was 'dissolved and democratic governments set up' in various places.*¹ The Mahā-Bhārata, similary, as we shall see in our discussion on Hindu Monarchy, considers monarchy alone as the Vedic form of government The hymns of the Ṛik and Atharvan, the view of the Mahā-Bhārata and the tradition which Megasthenes heard in India in the fourth century B.C., all point to the fact that republican form of government in India came long after monarchy,∗ and after the early Vedic age. It appears in the later Vedic literature: in the Ṛigvedic Brāhmaṇa the Aitareya, and in the Yajurveda and its Brāhmaṇa the Taittirīya. The republican constitutions mentioned in these documents will be discussed, for the sake of convenience and clearness, after the better known cases of later history.