The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c5.10

c5.10

tend to be the rule. Nor would an "empire" under such circumstances hold together long even nominally. The outlying regions would constantly be tempted to cut themselves adrift from the main body, to start on an absolutely independent career and, in their turn, to make a bid for supremacy. Once again, at the first signs of weakness or pressure at the new centre, the old process might re-start round another point. Indian political history would thus resolve itself into a ceaseless play of the centripetal and centrifugal forces in which the latter would, on the whole, prove stronger than the former.