Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c41.187

c41.187

We had an organism or a twin organism, the Paura-Jānapada, which could depose the king, who nominated successor to the throne, whose kindly feelings towards a member of the royal family indicated his chance of succession, whose president was apprized by the king of the policy of state decided upon in the council of ministers, who were approached and begged by the king in all humility for a new tax, whose confidence in a minister was regarded an essential qualification for his appointment as chancellor, who were consulted and referred to with profound respect by a king aspiring to introduce a new religion, who demanded and got industrial, commercial and financial privileges for the country, whose wrath meant ruin to provincial governors, who were coaxed and flattered in public proclamations, who could enact Statutes even hostile to the king, in fine, who could make possible or impossible the administration of the king—an organism with these constitutional attributes was an institution which we will be justified in calling the Hindu Diet.