Local Government in Ancient India c16.7

c16.7

The various local institutions on closer analysis will be found to illustrate two types of political formation, namely, (*a*) Territorial, where the principle of association is that of neighbourhood, the bond of physical connexion promoting associated life among the children of a common soil; (*b*) Communal, where the group formation is not determined by the physical, but—broadly speaking—by the moral or spiritual factor. It is not the relationship to a place, but the community of interests and functions that leads to the grouping. It is also to be noted that such associations of interests or functions were of course determined in India by the fixed social divisions of the country, and not by the free choice of the units composing the associations. They are not deliberate groupings dictated by self-interest and subject to changes in their composition—not spontaneous or natural but hereditary groupings. The terms and conditions of the association were immutably fixed in accordance with the principles of the larger social grouping and organization regulating the entire life of the community.