Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c13.22

c13.22

§ 33. The Macedonian writers¹ describe many of these republics, two of which are the grammarians' 'military' (āyudhajīvin or śastropajīvin) Saṁghas: the Kshudrakas and the Mālavas. Their territories and populations were large. Their states comprised several cities. They were very rich. Any idea of mercenary life is excluded by the Greek description. They were large sovereign states, with noted wealth, prosperity and civil organisation. Do these writers notice any characteristics which may correspond to the *āyudhajīvin*? They do; and their datum agrees with the interpretation which we have offered above. They say that these free communities were the most famous for their *military skill*.¹ The Greek writers further describe one constitution the law of which made the citizens devote only limited attention to military matters, implying thereby that others did the opposite.² Upajīv thus has a reference to their conventional or constitutional practice. The *āyudhajīvinaḥ* of Pāṇini are to be taken as denoting those republics which considered military art as the vital principle of their constitution. That was the chief feature of their constitution in the eyes of their contemporaries, as the chief feature in the other class of republics was the law which allowed the elected president (or every member of a ruling council) to be called *rājā* or 'king.'³