The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.67.1

c21.67.1

literature¹ that the development of the Âryan kingship owed something to the example of the aborigines. But after this possible fusion of Âryan and aboriginal institutions had been completed, there was, in historical times, little outside influence forthcoming to give a different turn to Hindu political development. There was, for instance, no such metamorphosis of the organs of governance in ancient India as came over Anglo-Saxon institutions with the Norman Conquest. Scholars now agree that general Greek influence on India was neither so deep nor so far-reaching as was once, almost naturally, supposed. Even in the case of the Hindu theatre the fact of the Greek influence, so strongly argued for by Weber,² has been denied by later writers.³ The latest surveyor of the Sanskrit Drama thus sums up the situation: “We cannot assuredly deny the possibility of Greek influence, in the sense that Weber admitted the probability; the drama or the mime, may, as played at Greek courts, have aided in the development of a true drama, but the evidence leaves only a negative answer to the search for positive signs of influence.”⁴ Greek influence on the art of Gandhâra is generally admitted but its extent is still a matter of controversy. Nor is the ground any surer in regard to philosophy. The new spirit which appeared in Buddhism about the first century B.C. has been traced by Sylvain Lévi to Hellenic influences, but here, as elsewhere, the evidence is very scanty.