Local Government in Ancient India c8.7

c8.7

Let us now proceed to the Vedic passages themselves. All of these contain the use of the words *śreṣṭhin* and *śraiṣṭhya*, which from their contexts would appear to have respectively the sense of the 'headman of a guild' and 'the foremost place that belongs to such a headman, the presidency of a guild'.¹