Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c13.4

c13.4

With Pāṇini, as we have seen above, the word Saṁgha is a technical term which denoted the *political Saṁgha*, or, as he calls it, the Gaṇa or Republic. He does not know the *religious Saṁgha*, which, as we shall presently see (§ 43), was a copy of the *political Saṁgha*. In the days of Pāṇini, Buddhist and Jaina Saṁghas either did not exist (and in that case Pāṇini's date would be about 600 B. C.), or they had not become important. It is to be noticed that Kātyāyana (cir. 400 B.C.)² found Saṃgha in the same technical sense as Pāṇini, for he gives no *vārttika* to Pāṇini, III 3.86, in dissent. K a u ṭ i l y a (cir. 300 BC.) too has the same use but with the difference that he employs it in a general sense as well (pp 36, 49, 407), *viz.*, that of a corporate association.