Local Government in Ancient India c13.120

c13.120

It will thus appear that the various circles of interests in the country differing in size and composition developed their corresponding administrative bodies. As regards the larger federations, sometimes they were occasional, meeting to dispose of some special business affecting the group. But there were also permanent institutions of the kind with defined structure and scope, regularly and systematically functioning for the popular weal. No. 368 of 1919 refers to a composite assembly of certain specified groups of people (*kuttam*) of the three recognized classes of *pallis*, of the four or six sub-divisions of professionals, of artisans (*rathakāra*) and of other castes and caste leaders living in the *three* districts. In these larger assemblies there seems to have been communal representation. Sometimes we also find the assemblies of different communities and interests meeting together to consider matters of common concern. We have already adduced examples of this. We have a few instances of common action by several village assemblies. No. 439 of 1906 mentions the joint sale of land belonging to three villages, and no. 338 of 1909 refers to the same transaction by four villages, which claiming the same piece of land settled their dispute by deciding that the land which was the bone of contention should be given away to the temple. No. 74 B (*S. I. I.*, vol. II, part III) refers to the joint meeting of two assemblies which agree that the two villages should be one.