Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c51.15

c51.15

§ 363. At the same time there was the system called the Sāmrājya. This was older than the *Sārva-bhauma* and also probably the *Ādhipatya*. This is the favourite of the Vedic literature. It is significant that the Aitareya detaches it from the monarchical systems and treats it as distinct. What is still surprising is that the *Brāhmaṇa* places it at the head of the list of non-monarchial systems. We can understand the reason if we analyse the system. *Sāṃ-rājya* indicates a "collection of states" under one acknowledged super-state. In modern phraseology it was a Federal Imperial system. The federal character distinguished it from the 'one-king' system. According to the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa the rulers in the Prāchī (East) took the consecration of Sāmrājya, *i.e.*, the Prāchī or Magadha had become the imperial seat. The *Śukla Yajurveda* knows the system as prevalent in another part of India (West, xv. 12) Prāchī was under the house of Jarāsandha, called in history after his ancestor Bṛihadratha. The Mahā-Bhārata says that the position of Samrāṭ was acquired by Jarāsandha. Jarāsandha was the President or Samrāṭ of the Federal Organisation and Śiśupāla, king of the Chedis, was the common generalissimo. In this detail we detect an inter-state basis of originally free nature. In the first book of the Mahā-Bhārata we actually find a free election of an emperor by a collection of kings and his consecration to that position.¹ The datum of the Sabhā-Parvan also implies that the system had been introduced by the rulers for self-protection,² but that Jarāsandha had abused it and reduced other sovereigns to slavery.