History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.224

v4.c62.224

But the plain meaning is that the mint-master was to mint standard silver and gold coins for all people when they brought bullion to him to have coins struck. One striking circumstance to be considered is that, though in all works on polity a *rājya* is said to have seven elements, none of them includes a political elective assembly (like the paura-jānapada postulated by Jayaswal) among them. They only enumerate the country and the capital and declare even these as of lesser importance than the king and the ministers. Another matter that makes the existence of powerful elective political assemblies in monarchies most unlikely is the total absence of any reference in works on polity to the method of election, the system of voting, the qualifications of members, the period for which the assembly was elected and allied matters. When medieval writers like Aparārka on Yāj. II. 1 (p. 600) quote from Bṛhaspati verses about four kinds of sabhā, they refer only to judicial tribunals of various sorts and grades (the same verses are quoted as Hārīta's in Rājanītiratnākara p. 20). Vide n. 368 below.