Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c19.98

c19.98

The Buddha only adopts the procedure-rules for particular kinds of cases arising in his organization. He himself came from one of the republics and mostly lived amongst republican communities: he was perfectly familiar with their working system and adapted it to the benefit of his own Order. His ambition was to found a large state, an empire, of his religious system (*dharma-chakra*) but the organisation he created to realise his aim was communal, fit to establish and hold only a city-state of dharma and not a *dharma-chakra*. The limitation was the result of early associations. Born in a republic, where political and public spirit was more intense than in contemporary kingdoms, he combined in him the capacity, the enthusiasm and the ambition, not of a quiet recluse, but of a republican chief and of a conqueror.² Unlike the normal Hindu ascetic he would hold property for his Saṅgha, he would hold meetings and pass resolutions and punish offenders.