Local Government in Ancient India c13.107

c13.107

The next question that suggests itself is : if there was an independent and supreme assembly of the village, did it include all the residents as its members ? We are indeed led to infer that it did from the passage quoted above about the *full* meeting of the assembly including the young and old members, and even the priestly outsiders who might happen to be present in the village on the occasion. Similarly, no. 178 of 1915, in *Report* for 1915–16, refers to a meeting of the great assembly, including the young and the old. But against this inference we have the positive testimony of an earlier inscription at Manūr in the Tinnevelly district (no. 423 of 1906, *Report for 1906–7*), dated in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Mārañjadaiyan (i. e. about the ninth century A. D.), which lays down certain qualifications for membership of the *sabhā* or assembly, as the aforesaid inscriptions lay down those for membership of its committees. The very promulgation of such rules of membership implies that the assembly was not a universal body open to all the residents, but was a narrower, select, and restricted body open only to those who could qualify themselves for its membership according to the rules. Thus it is stated that