Local Government in Ancient India c8.8

c8.8

¹ '*Śreṣṭhin* occurs in several passages of the Brāhmaṇas where the St. Petersburg Dictionary assigns to the word the sense of "a man of consequence". It is, however, possible that the word may already have had the sense of the headman of a guild, the modern Seth. There is a similar doubt in the use of *śraiṣṭhya*, which is perhaps not merely "the foremost place" as usually assumed, but definitely "the presidency of a guild"'.—Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, vol. II, pp. 403-4.