Local Government in Ancient India c16.4

c16.4

But along with the transplantation of the institutions there has been also a transplantation of names with them. The terms Sabhā and Mahāsabhā of the Southern inscriptions have the authority of the Veda for their currency. (Has the Samiti of the Veda, the term for the general assembly of the people, been converted into Mahāsabhā for the sake of greater definition?) It may be noted that the term Sabhā is retained in the expression Nigama-Sabhā occurring in a Northern inscription. We have again in the South such terms as Samvatsara-grāmakārya committee, Mūlapariṣad, Nirvāha-Sabhā, Maṭha, Sthānika, Nagara (with a vernacular suffix), and the word Gaṇa in such formations as Gaṇapperumakkal and Ālumgaṇattar already referred to, as also Rahasyādhikārīn, Adhikārin, Senāpati, Madhyastha (names of officers), Ājñapti, pramāṇa (deed), vyavasthā, parihāra (immunities), grāmadrohin and kaṇṭaka, madhyama (village common), gopracāra-bhūmi (pasture), and the like. These Sanskrit terms thus adapted into the popular political phraseology of the South supply one more proof of the common origin of developments that seem different in their necessary local variations.