Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c16.2

c16.2

§ 60. The historians of Alexander's campaign have described a number of states as 'free,' 'autonomous,' or 'independent,' by which they mean republican. McCrindle recognises the significance of the expression 'independent' but as he was ignorant of the fact of Indian republics, he thought that it referred to 'the Indian village system: *“Each of its rural units they (Greeks) took to be an independent republic.”*¹ But the Greeks never mistook a village panchāyat for a republic; they treat the communities as states and not as village-units. They fought them, they negotiated treaties with them, they recorded details of their constitutions; the Greeks knew them too well to make a mistake of the sort suggested by McCrindle. Then, the Greeks may be trusted for their discrimination in matters constitutional. There cannot be any room for doubt or controversy if we see what Megasthenes, the Greek envoy at the court of Chandragupta Maurya has to say. He was not a passing raider like Alexander's companions but an observer of several years. He divides the country into two forms of government—monarchical and republican:—