Local Government in Ancient India c13.104

Language: English

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Meetings of the assembly were of course held in the public hall of the village. In Vedic India the hall served as a meeting-place for social intercourse and general conversation, as also for debates and verbal contests (*Ṛv.* VI. 28, 6; VIII. 4, 9; *Av.* VII. 12, 2–3; also *Ṛv.* II. 24, 13 [*sabheya*]). The hall was also used for dicing, presumably when the assembly was not transacting public business (*Ṛv.* X. 34, 6; *Av.* V. 31, 6; XII. 3, 46); a dicer is called *sabhā-sthāṇu*, 'pillar of the assembly-hall', doubtless because of his constant presence there [*Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā*, XXX. 18; *Taittirīya Br.*, III. 4, 16, 1 with Sāyaṇa's note]. The administrative and judicial business of some of the autonomous clans of Buddhist India was carried out in public assembly, at which young and old were alike present in their common Mote-Hall (*santhāgāra*) at Kapilavastu. When King Pasenadi asked for one of the daughters of the Sākiya chiefs as his wife the Sākiyas discussed the proposition in their Mote-Hall. A new Mote-Hall was constructed at Kapilavastu whilst the Buddha was staying at the Nigrodhārāma in the Mahāvana near by. He was asked to inaugurate the building, and the opening ceremony was accompanied by a series of ethical discourses lasting through the night delivered by himself, Ānanda, and Moggallāna (Rhys Davids, *Buddhist India*, 19, 20).

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Similarly, the Licchavi assembly was composed of numerous members who are mentioned in the Jātakas as holding their meeting in a ‘royal rest-house’ (IV. 7–24), once to discuss a marriage proposal (IV. 145), and at another time to make arrangements for the reception of a prince of a neighbouring royal house (IV. 146). In some of the Smṛtis (e.g. *Bṛhaspati*) one of the duties of the village assemblies (called *samūha*) laid down is the maintenance of public halls, while in one of the Nāsik inscriptions cited above there occurs the expression *nigama-sabhā*, or the town-hall where the charitable or religious endowments were publicly proclaimed, accepted by the guilds, and registered in their archives. Similar evidence is forthcoming in the South Indian inscriptions. No. 104 of 1908 mentions the Sabhā meeting in the hall called *Doyāpañjaram* in the temple, and no. 105 speaks of its meeting at the foot of *Uraṅgāppuli*. No. 326 of 1910 mentions an assembly meeting in the ‘big hall’ called *Gaṇḍarādittan* while no. 332 mentions the same assembly meeting at the foot of a tamarind tree. No. 140 of 1909 mentions a Sabhā meeting at the foot of a tree on the banks of a canal. One of the Ukkal inscriptions (no. 7 of *S. I. Ins.*, vol. III, p. 12) mentions the assembly meeting in the front hall of the Puvanimāṇikka-Viṣṇugṛham in the village (Sans. *mukha-maṇḍapa*). Nos. 28 and 30 (ibid.) refer to the assembly meeting in the *brahmasthāna* of the village, while nos.

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35 and 77 mention the court of the temple as the place of the meeting. Three inscriptions copied at Nattam, a hamlet of Parameśvara-maṅgalam in the Chingleput district, refer to the hall (*catuśśālā*) known as Rājendraśolan in the village where the assembly used to meet (*Madras Epigraphy Report*, 1912–13, p. 98). In no. 653 of 1909 (*Report* for 1909–10) the assembly of a Brahmadeya village meet under a tamarind tree called *Rājendracolam*. In Tamil inscriptions we generally find village assemblies meeting either in a *maṇḍapa* built for the purpose or in a temple. ‘The peculiar circumstances under which the Mahājanas of Pāvaikuḍi met under a tamarind tree reminds us of the village pīpal-tree with the big platform round it found in the centre of almost every hamlet in the Mysore country where questions concerning the village public are decided by the people gathered in the assembly’ (*Madras Epigraphy Report*, 1909–10, p. 90). No. 398 of 1913 (*Report* for 1913–14) mentions an assembly of a Brahmadeya village meeting in a hall called *Tiruvaraṅgadevan*. No. 178 of 1915 (*Report* for 1915–16) mentions the great assembly of Madhurāntaka-Caturvedimaṅgalam including the young and the old meeting together in the big hall called *Śembiyan-* *mahādevīpperumaṇḍapam*, built by Rājarāja I, evidently for the purpose of the meetings of the assembly.