Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c14.47

c14.47

"A single chief—how, and for what period chosen, we do "not know—was elected as office-holder, presiding over the "sessions, and, if no sessions were sitting, over the State. He "bore the title of *rāja*, which must have meant something like "the Roman consul, or the Greek archōn. We hear no-"where of such a triumvirate as bore corresponding office "among the Licchavis, nor of such acts of kingly sovereignty "as are ascribed to the real kings mentioned above. But we "hear at one time¹ that Bhaddiya, a young cousin of the "Buddha's was the rāja; and in another passage, Suddhodana, "the Buddha's father (who is elsewhere spoken of as a simple "citizen, Suddhodana Sākiyan), is called the rāja."