The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c5.6

c5.6

The nature and working of Hindu political institutions were largely affected by geography, racial characteristics, social organisation and economic conditions. Geographical factors have, more than anything else, determined the trend of Indian political history. While the Himâlayas have, for the most part, formed an impenetrable wall on the North, the openings on the North-west have let in successive hordes of immigrants and invaders who brought with them new types of civilisation, new ideas and institutions. Again, the north-western passes facilitated commercial and general intercourse between India and the Middle East. Recent excavations and discoveries, carried out chiefly by Sir Aurel Stein, have proved that the extensive desert which bars inter-communication at present was not so arid two thousand years ago, and that in Baluchistân and Seistân there existed flourishing sites of civilisation which were abandoned, with the gradual drying up of the land, only after the second century B. C. The chances for an exchange of cultural and political influences with Persia, might, *prima facie*, have had something to do with the development of Hindu practices. Within the frontiers of India there are hills and valleys in the North, North-west,