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Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c23: Chapter XV: Formation of New Republics

Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c23

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English

Chapter XV: Formation of New Republics

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§ 125. Confining our attention to the period of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., we not only find the Buddhists but also the Jainas founding religious corporations in the very terms of politics. The Jaina-sūtras show individuals founding new gaṇas and Kulas which sometimes take the name of the founder and sometimes that of the place, e.g., *Godāsa*, *Gaṇa* founded by Godāsa, the *Uttara Valissaha Gaṇa*, founded by Uttara and Valissaha conjointly, the *Uddeha Gaṇa* founded by Rohaṇa, the *Indrapūraka kula* founded by Karmardhi.¹ Likewise we know of schisms in the Buddhist Saṁgha, and we know also of the formation of new Saṁghas. The phenomenon of new foundations is not confined to the history of our religious 'republics.' The Mahā-Bhārata points out the great danger of disunion and schisms in republics. The authors of the Mahā-Bhārata were probably aware of such political breaches. The two Mallas² and the two Madras were probably results of this propensity.

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¹ Hoernle *Ind. Ant.*, XI. 246, XX. 347.

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² The lower Mallas are called Dakshiṇa Mallas in the *Sabhāparvan*, (Ch. XXXI. 12) which places the higher Mallas next to Kosala (XXX. 3.)

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§ 126. Apart from disruptive instances, we have instances of the formation of entirely new republics. The Kurus and the Pañchālas who had been under monarchies according to Vedic literature³ and the Jātakas, adopt republican form of government about the fifth or the fourth century B.C. As we have seen they are described as republics in the Artha-Sāstra of Kauṭilya. Another instance, which has been already pointed out by Prof. Rhys Davids, is the change of constitution of the Videhas.¹ They had been formerly under monarchy according to Vedic literature and the Jātakas. Megasthenes states that republican form of government was thrice established and thrice changed into monarchy.² This tradition would have been current in one of the principal seats of monarchy of the Doab where ancient chronicles had been kept.

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³ See below § 198, Pt. II, p. 4.

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¹ Buddhist *India*, p. 26.

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² Mc Crindle, *Megasthenes*, p. 203.

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We have, though a little later in age, yet certainly reflecting earlier established notions, republican coins struck either in the name of the Gaṇa, or of the country, and in one instance,³ the gaṇa being described as the Protector (*trāta-sy*). We have thus reached the artificial country or territorial nation and abstract government. We find the Ārjunāyanas named after one man, the founder 'One of the family of Arjuna (*Ārjunāyana*).⁴ The national or the tribal basis had thus ceased to work fairly early, a basis which every ancient republic in sister races outside India was built upon and which also greatly operated in the establishment of the earliest republics in India as well, as implied by the references in the Mahā-Bhārata to the Vṛishṇis and probably to the word *gotra* in Chapter 107 of the Sānti-parvan.

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³ The Vrishṇi Coin noticed above.

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⁴ See Gp. on Pāṇini. IV. 2. 53.

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The recognition of the system of naming a corporate association after the founder or president helps us in investigating the origins of our republics. The village corporation was named after the grāmaṇī,⁵ Vedic charaṇas were named after founders, religious bodies took the names of their first organisers, and so did may of our republics.

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⁵ See above, p. 15, n.

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As remarked (IV. 2. 53.) above, the constitution of the Vedic period was monarchical. Megasthenes also, as we have seen, notes the Hindu tradition current in the fourth century B. C. that after monarchy came the republican form. All these data indicate that the **republican system is post-Vedic and artificial**, that it is post-tribal and philosophic. Take also the names of technical constitutions: *Vairājya*, literally '**kingless-(system)**', *Svārājya*, '**self-ruling (system)**,' *Bhaujya*, '**temporary rulership (system)**.' These names are not derived from tribes; it was not that the tribal names gave names to forms of government. The names of constitutions are artificial, philosophic. The tradition that there was first monarchy is supported by the Vedas, the tradition that monarchy was rejected and democratic forms of government set up is supported by the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa.

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§ 127. Again, in view of the above conclusion, take the tradition of the Purāṇas that **Yaudheya and Madra**, two cadets of a monarchical house in the Middle Country, went out to the Punjab and founded states called after their names. This Purāṇic history is in full agreement with known facts: corporate institutions were named after founders. The Madras and the Yaudheyas thus were not tribes, but states and artificial, 'political tribes,' like the artificial, religious Śākya-putras. It was the state in these two cases which gave the name to the citizens, a name which was artificially tribal, or in modern phraseology a name which denoted Political Nationality as opposed to what we may call tribal nationality. In the light of this discussion, we can understand the remark of the ancient grammarian (probably Vyāḍi) quoted by Patañjali: '**Kshudraka-Mālavas are not *gotra* names**,'¹ *i.e.*, family names.) Like the Madras and Yaudheyas these were political nations, members of states called after two personal names. We have the additional evidence of Pāṇini that martial states had men of all castes not one *gotra* or tribe. The Arājaka democracy also, according to the Mahā-Bhārata, was not based on tribal but legal and communal basis. (Many more of the republics had originated like the Yaudheya and Madra, Mālava and Kshudraka, under purely non-tribal conditions.) The later states (Ch. XVIII) like Śālankāyana, Arjunāyana and Pushyamitra bearing personal names and names of recent origin further illustrate the practice.

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¹ See above p. 71, n.

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§ 128. At the same time it cannot be asserted, as already stated, that no tribal element is to be found in any of the Hindu republics. Basis of every state has been in all ages and in all climes, to a great degree ethnic—tribal or national. The real question is whether a state-organization is yet tribal—primitive, habitual and customary, or it is the outcome of intelligent thinking, of theories, of conscious experience and experiments. The stage when State is felt to be based on contract and the ruler is regarded to be a servant of the ruled and when political loyalty (§ 118—119) is even open to strangers, is a high water-mark of constitutional development. Voting and ballot-voting, motion, resolution and legislation, legalism and formalism in procedure of deliberation, are other indices of that stage.

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Constitutions gave distinctive marks to individual political community and converted it, so to say, into artificial tribes. It, therefore, becomes very difficult to distinguish between real tribes and artificial tribes, the ethnic *gotra* and the political *gotra*. Probably the early Sātvats were originally a real tribe as the description of the Vṛishṇis and Andhakas in the Mahā-Bhārata would indicate. But the 'Country of Rājanya (Elected Ruler),' Rājanya-Janapada, was evidently a political tribe, a political community, a creation of constitution.† So was the 'Mahārāja-Janapada.' *Janapada* in such cases becomes a political unit, probably a city-state. The Rāshtrikas and Bhojas were, likewise, creations of constitution. The Kathas, on the other hand, might have been originally a tribe, [as Patañjali's' expression *Katha-jātīyaḥ* may denote. *Jāti*, however, may be a secondary character. *Birth* (*Jāti*) in a *gaṇa*-state was deemed to confer equality in citizenship on a free man. *Kaṭhā-jātīyas* and *Katha-deśīyas* may thus signify only 'men born in the Kaṭha country,' 'men of the Kaṭha-country,' and the Kaṭha-country and Kaṭha-state might have been called after one Kaṭha, the political founder. The other examples of Patañjali, go to support this view, *viz.* Karaka-jātīyas, Karaka-deśīyas, Sraughna-jātīyas, Sraughna-deśīyas. Srughna and Karaka were both place-names, not tribe names. Karaka was evidently derived from a river, *e.g.*, in Pāras-kara (trans-Kara district). *Jāti*, here and in Pāṇini, VI. 3. 41, very likely means 'birth', not caste or nation.] At the same time it is not incompatible with the advanced stage of constitution-making that a community which had been originally a tribal unit and still retained traces of its former organization, should adopt an advanced constitution. But to call all these republics tribal organizations, or 'tribal rebublics' would be unscientific. Every state in ancient Rome and Greece was 'tribal' in the last analysis, but no constitutional historian would think of calling the republics of Rome and Greece mere tribal organizations.

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† On P. VI. 3. 42; Kielhorn III, p. 157.

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