Local Government in Ancient India c3: Author's Preface

Local Government in Ancient India c3

Language: English

Author's Preface

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The present work aims at a systematic presentation of an important aspect of Indian culture-history, the origin and development of various local institutions through which the communal life of the country expressed itself. The remarkable range, volume, and variety of the evidence bearing on the subject call for a methodical and scientific treatment which will bring into prominence the exuberant vitality and manifold growth of self-governing institutions among a people characterized by a genius for social experiments and constructions.

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The treatment of the evidence as a connected and comprehensive whole is, however, not free from certain difficulties owing to its special character. This has been discussed in the work towards the conclusion. The evidence of the North and the evidence of the South are separated, for example, not merely by a distance in space, but also by a distance in time. The later date of the southern evidence has been explained by a competent archaeologist on the assumption that the institutions referred to therein were importations from the North, and hence late in their appearance in the South. Both the evidences point, in fact, to parallel lines of development with the necessary local variations. The substantial similarity of the organizations in the North and the South has been the main argument in favour of subjecting them to a common treatment. Intensive studies of local areas have been sometimes supposed to be the only admissible method for investigating the social phenomena of a country like India possessed of such vast territorial extent and variety of social stratification and composition, but, in the majority of cases, such studies do not weaken, but strengthen, the case for generalizations and extensive studies for the whole of India. Sometimes local developments are indeed better understood as parts of a wider and more fundamental one : a study of the whole throws light on the parts. The truth is that India is fundamentally one, physically and culturally. I have very often found that the literary and epigraphic evidence, the law-books and the inscriptions, support and explain one another in spite of their differences in date and locality.

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In this connexion I may indicate two possible sources of error in historical treatment. The first is to lose sight of the organic inter-connexions of cultural developments in the mass of local particulars. This naturally leads to a narrow sectional view of Indian history that seeks, for example, to pit Aryan against non-Aryan, South against North, Brahmanical records and sources against Buddhist, or indigenous growths, evolutions, and assimilations against foreign importations, imitations, or exploitations. The second is to miss the spontaneity and significance of specific variations which give body and shape to the generic experiences of the historical consciousness in particular environments. This has been a fruitful source of historic misinterpretations, among which we may mention the tendency to see in Indian history endless repetitions of one invariable type of state and political institutions, autocratic and theocratic in their character, thus to apply the linear view of social evolution to Indian political developments; or to interpret the various indigenous codes of law as being based only on the rigid concept of sovereignty without recognizing how largely are the origins of law and constitution in India traceable to the pristine factors of the indigenous scheme of social values.

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Here I may as well raise a caveat against certain sources of bias which are apt to vitiate our historical judgements. Sometimes there is an unfounded belief in immobile, exaggerated racial types, in an exclusive European or Asiatic mentality, which, if true, would make Indian history disparate with European. Others again have sought to interpret and appraise Indian culture in terms of the fundamental concepts of Western social progress and civilization. This unfortunately amounts to putting Indian life in all its original and spontaneous forms and vigorous growths into the Procrustean bed of the shibboleths and copy-book maxims of Western social science. I have tried my best to be on my guard against these sources of bias. If I have occasionally seemed to be guilty of reading into ancient records the modern notions of the West, perhaps the very conditions of writing on indigenous topics in a foreign language are largely responsible for it. I have been driven to the necessity of using, for instance, such familiar terms of Western political experience as guilds (craft-guilds and merchant-guilds), partnerships, municipalities, and the like, but they do not always imply precisely corresponding institutions in Indian politics with an exact identity of structure and functions. I have used them in a broad sense as convenient symbols to express allied realities or notions. It will also, I trust, be found that I have not made any observations or drawn any conclusions which are not supported by the clearest texts or other adequate evidence.

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Finally, it has to be borne in mind that the methods of investigation as well as canons of criticism which apply to the social sciences, or studies in culture-history, must differ from those of the physical sciences which deal with phenomena admitting of exact quantitative measurement.

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There are a few minor points to which I may also advert in this connexion. In the introduction I have put forward, as a tentative suggestion, the hypothesis about the peculiar relations between the state and society in ancient India which has, to my mind, the merit of explaining some of the paradoxes in its history and throwing light on some of its obscure aspects or chapters. The introduction, I trust, will thus be found to be a contribution to the study of Indian political evolution. Another point requiring mention is that in citing South Indian evidence I have had reasons to depart from the chronological limits of the ancient period of Indian history, and to bring within its purview certain passages of what is generally regarded as the mediaeval period of that history. For it has to be recognized that there are certain fundamental factors which do not always permit the ancient and mediaeval periods of North and South Indian history to agree closely in chronological limits. There are wide divergences in the dates of our evidence in the North and the South, and, consequently, in the dates of the corresponding historical developments, so that to apply under such dissimilar circumstances a common chronological criterion would be an attempt at a forced and artificial uniformity. The ancient period is longer in the South than in the North, while the mediaeval period may be regarded as dating practically from the battle of Talikota (A. D. 1565), the date of the downfall of the great Hindu Empire of Vijayanagara, the last of the independent political states of ancient Hindu India.¹ Accordingly, there are numerous references in the work to South Indian evidence, ranging in dates from the ninth to the twelfth and even thirteenth and fourteenth centuries A. D., while the evidence for the North closes at a much earlier period. The third point requiring notice is that, while the evidence of the South Indian inscriptions is copious in its details respecting the constitution of the local bodies, that of the North is practically devoid of such details, which can only be but partially gathered from the literary texts. As regards the terms used for such local bodies, the South Indian inscriptions invariably use two terms, viz. *Mahāsabhā* and *Sabhā*, indicating respectively the general or the greater assembly and the smaller and subordinate committee of the larger body, while the corresponding terms used in the northern inscriptions are *Śreṇī*, *Nigama*, and *Nigama-Sabhā*. It may be noted in passing that the use of Sanskrit terms for these local bodies in the South is one more indication of the fact that they are parts of a common Indian system with organic affinities. The last point on which I should like to comment is that the present work does not treat of all classes of local bodies in ancient India: the educational and purely religious bodies, like the *pariṣads* and *sanghas* for instance, which require separate monographs by themselves, have been excluded from its purview. I have already announced a monograph on 'Educational Institutions in Ancient India'.

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¹ It may be noted that the treatment of South Indian history in the *Imperial Gazetteer*, new ed., adopts the same chronological limit.

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Portions of the book were formed into a paper which I read before a meeting of the Mythic Society, Bangalore, under the presidency of the Hon. Mr. Cobb, the British Resident of Mysore, in February, 1918. The paper was published in the following April issue of the *Journal of the Mythic Society*.

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I owe special acknowledgements to the Marquess of Crewe, K.G., for his Foreword, to Dr. Brajendranath Seal, M.A., Ph.D., George V Professor of Philosophy in the Calcutta University, for some very valuable improvements, and to Mr. V. A. Smith, M.A., the learned historian, for his kind interest in my work shown by seeing it through the Press. I am also thankful to my colleague, Mr. M. Hiriyanna, M.A., the University Professor of Sanskrit, for his revision of the work and several valuable suggestions.