History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.222.1

v4.c62.222.1

Two other words require consideration, viz. *Paura* and *Jānapada*. The word ‘paura’ occurs in Ṛg. V. 74. 4 where it has three applications, viz. to the Aśvins, to the sage Paura (who was an Ātreya) and to the cloud (acc. to Sāyaṇa). K. P. Jayaswal (in ‘Hindu Polity’, part II pp. 60-108) devotes considerable space to ‘Paura’ and ‘Jānapada’ and one may at once admit that he displays great learning, industry and ingenuity in his discourse on this subject. He holds that the Paura and the Jānapada were elective parliamentary bodies or what may be called the Hindu Diet and he sums up (on p. 108) their functions as follows ‘we had an organism or a twin organism, the Paura-Jānapada, which could depose the king, who nominated the successor to the throne ..., whose President was apprised 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 as an essential qualification for his appointment as Chancellor, who demanded and got industrial, commercial and financial privileges for the country, who could enact statutes even hostile to the king, in fine who could make possible or impossible the administration of the king. ' This is a very glowing picture of parliamentary institutions in ancient India. But unfortunately it cannot be accepted as the truth. Many scholars such as Prof. B. K. Sarkar (in 'Political Institutions and theories of the Hindus' p.