Local Government in Ancient India c16.12

c16.12

Besides these various types of strictly political associations or territorial structures, we have a similar story of development as regards the non-local communal corporations. The special interests of cities seem to have been administered by their own special bodies called the Nagarattār, the assembly of the Nagara or city. The arts and crafts had their own guilds as their governing bodies. We may refer also to the large guild of oilmen comprising those of Kāñci and its suburbs and of twenty-four Nagaras. Similarly, there were large leagues of merchants, almost Hanseatic in their dimensions, scope, and activities, of which we have already cited some typical examples. It may be easily understood that these industrial combinations, based as they are upon the non-local principle, upon community of occupations and interests, can not have their particular kind of jurisdiction limited by any local boundaries. They have a different principle of growth which transcends physical limitations. Akin as regards the principles of formation and working to these commercial combinations are also the many educational corporations and religious brotherhoods of the country like the Maṭhas, which show a considerable capacity for organization by which different centres of culture are affiliated to a common seat of authority from which they are all regulated and controlled. The Golaki Maṭha, according to an inscription, exercised its jurisdiction over as many as three lakhs of villages.