Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c18.4

c18.4

§ 91. The Bhaujya constitution is noticed by the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.¹ We get some light on this constitution from an unexpected quarter. The Pāli Canon² enumerates careers open to a *Kulaputta*. Amongst these, next to the king-consul, we have *Raṭṭhika* and *Pettanika*. Aśoka in his inscriptions, equates Bhoja with Raṭhika or Rāshṭrika.³ The commentary on the Aṅguttara Nikāya explains the Pettanika as being hereditary leadership (Sāpateyya), come down from forefathers.¹ The Rāshtrikas and Bhojakas or Bhojas as opposed to Pettanikas apparently meant non-hereditary leadership. *Sāpateyyam* ('together-leadership') suggests that in each case there were more than one leader. The Mahā-Bhārata also in its list of different classes of rulers mentions Bhoja as a class (*Sānti.* Ch. lxvii. Śl. 54).² To this interpretation I am also led by Khāravela's inscription which describes the *Rāshtrikas* and the *Bhojakas* with paraphernalia of sovereignty.³ Later inscriptions have Bhojas and Mahā-Bhojas which signify higher and ordinary classes of leaders. Sovereignty rested in the Bhoja leaders. The constitution itself was called *Bhaujya* as in the Aitareya. It is note-worthy that the *Bhojas*, so-called after their rulers, appear in later literature as a sub-division of the Yādavas whose earlier history we find as a league of two republics, called the *Andhaka-Vrishṇis* (§§ 36-40). Now according to the Aitareya the Satvats, which is the ancient name for the Yādavas, were one of the peoples who observed the Bhaujya constitution.