The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.101.4

c21.101.4

The foregoing chapters will have demonstrated that the structure and working of institutions, as revealed by the original authorities, was not, except in essentials, uniform over the whole of North India or throughout the ancient age. During the last few centuries for which authentic epigraphic evidence is most abundant, the administration was much less elaborate in some regions than in Kanauj, Magadha or Bengal. As part of the variety which Hindu administration shows, must be reckoned the existence of clan or tribal oligarchies. Their existence is well-attested by Jaina and Buddhist literature, by Greek accounts and by Samudragupta’s Allâhâbâd Inscription. They did not all follow a uniform type. Negatively the absence of monarchy as commonly understood and positively, the presence of the oligarchic principle was the only common feature. An interesting passage of rather uncertain date, in the Jaina Âcârânga Sûtra speaks of six different kinds of polity as prevalent in north India—“arâyâṇi vâ, gaṇarâyâṇi vâ, juvarâyâṇi vâ, dorajjâṇi vâ, verajjâṇi vâ, viruddharajjâṇi vâ.”¹ The import of the statement is not perfectly clear; the last two terms are particularly obscure; perhaps the classification proceeds as much on the basis of difference of administrative structure as of quality of administration. But one can distinguish kingless, gaṇa-ruled and two-ruled states. In any case it appears that the oligarchies differed in constitution among themselves as monarchies did.