Local Government in Ancient India c8.2.1

c8.2.1

According to orthodox Hindu tradition and opinion, the origins of Hindu culture and civilization in all respects and particulars, aspects and phases, strata and stages, are to be found foreshadowed and imbedded in the Vedas. To these eternal and original documents can be traced the roots of all our subsequent history and development. Whatever may be the intrinsic worth and merits of this theory, it seems to be true at least in respect of the history of Hindu guilds. Even foreign scholars such as Geldner, Roth, &c., for instance, find references to them in the Vedic literature. There is no doubt a difference of opinion among Vedic scholars as to the exact significance of these references, and, considered by themselves merely as literary passages, they may seem to be doubtful indications of a formal and well-defined institution. But if we combine with the *literary* evidence the evidence of *history*, the evidence furnished by the evolution of Aryan life, the spread of Aryan colonization, the propagation of Aryan culture and civilization in India from the Vedic period downwards, much of the uncertainty of the purely literary evidence will disappear.