Local Government in Ancient India c3.3

c3.3

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.