Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c23.9

c23.9

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.