Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c27.13

c27.13

With the end of the fifth century Republics disappear from Hindu India. The old Lichchhavis quit the political scene, a branch migrating into Nepal. The young Pushyamitras vanish in the air. The following century saw the final exit of Hindu constitutionalism from the stage of History. All that was good, come down from the age of Vedic Forefathers, all that progress which had been achieved since the composition of the first Ṛik, all that gave life to the mechanism of State, bade good-bye to the Land. Republicanism was the first to begin the Great Departure, to lead the dirge of political Nirvāṇa. We have understood only one verse of that epilogue—the praise of the sword of destruction which nature gives into the hand of the barbarian. But the other verses are yet a riddle. The real causes of that Departure which the epilogue should disclose remain undeciphered.