Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c26.58

c26.58

§ 159. The older republics in the Punjab, however, paid the price which nature decrees from freedom to force. The smaller Punjab republics under the Mauryas had become mere constitutions; they had lost their biological constitution and retained the one of political phraseology: they were no more Saṅghas, but mere Gaṇas: self-governments without states, states without power.