Local Government in Ancient India c7.18

c7.18

(iii. 248, 16³). Similarly, as regards the term *kula*, one commentator on Nārada, I. 7, takes it to mean an assemblage consisting of a few persons, and others as only a family meeting. The word in Yājñavalkya, II. 31⁴ is explained by the *Mitākṣarā*⁵ to mean an assemblage of kinsmen, relations, and friends. The same term is used in the *Kauṭilīya* (I. xvii) in the sense of a council of regency or oligarchy, the rule of which is preferable to that of an incompetent king.⁶ More various are the uses and interpretations of the term *gaṇa*, which in Manu, III. 164¹, is explained as meaning peoples or guilds. Govindarāja and Kullūka, commenting on the term in IV. 209,² mention as examples a fraternity of Brāhmaṇas inhabiting a monastery. The word in Nārada, I. 7, is explained by one commentator to mean a fellowship such as the Brāhmaṇa caste, and by others as an assembly of co-inhabitants, while the same word in X. 2³ is explained, on the authority of Kātyāyana, to signify an assemblage of families. The *Mahābhārata* uses the term with reference to a political, self-governing corporation, which is also the sense of the word in such expressions as *Yaudheya-gaṇasya*, occurring on the coins of the military clan of the Yaudheyas, and *Mālava-gaṇa-sthiti*, occurring in the Mandasor inscription of Kumāragupta. The *Vivādaratnākara* (see Naigamādisaṃjñā) takes the term in the sense of an association of Brāhmans alone, the *Smṛti-Candrikā* (p. 40) in the sense of a confederation of Kulas, while the *Vyavahāramayūkha* takes it as a composite confederation of all other associations.