Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c9.31

c9.31

The Samiti had a very long life. We find it in the Vedic age itself regarded as eternal, called "a daughter of Prajāpati," the Creator.³ It must have been, therefore, an ancient institution even then. Its continuous existence is attested by the Ṛig-Veda and the Atharva-Veda, and later, by the Chhāndogya Upanishad (*c.* 800 or 700 B. C.) which nearly marks the end of the later Vedic period. The period covered by these records extends over several centuries. That the institution did not far outlive the later Vedic age and did not come down to the epoch which in its latest phase saw the rise of empires, is borne out by the Pāraskara-Gṛihya Sūtra (*c.* 500 B. C.) which treats the Samiti (called by the other name, *Parishat*, or rather *Parshat*)⁴ evidently as a reminiscence (Pār. G. III. 13. 4.) In Pāraskara the ancient tradition of Samiti is merely applied to the Sabhā, as the opening sentence indicates (अथातः सभाप्रवेशनम्). The Samiti disappears before the time of the Jātakas (600 B. C.) We have thus the age-history of the Samiti from the latter part of the millennium of the Ṛig-Veda down to about 700 B. C., a life extending certainly over a thousand years, and very likely longer. In the imperial epoch, we naturally do not find the Samiti, but we find another institution which, as we shall see (Ch xxvii), was a phœnix, arisen out of the ashes of the Samiti.