Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c9.3

c9.3

§ 6. Going back to the oldest literature of the race, we find from the Vedas that national life and activities in the earliest times on record were expressed through popular assemblies and institutions. The greatest institution of this nature was the Samiti of our Vedic fore-fathers The word *samiti* (*sam* + *iti*) means 'meeting together,' *i.e.*, an assembly. The Samiti was the national assembly of the whole people or *Viśaḥ* (विशः) ;¹ for we find 'the whole people' or Samiti, in the alternative, electing and re-electing the *Rājan* (राजन) or '*King*.'² The whole people were supposed to be present in the Assembly.