The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c6.46

c6.46

Tribes. The political organisation reflected in Books II—VII is the same as in Books I, VIII and IX. All the nine Maṇḍalas can, therefore, be utilised together. The Âryans of the Rigveda are divided into a number of tribes. The ‘Five Tribes,’ frequently spoken of, seem to be the Purus, Turvaśas, Yadus, Anus, and Druhyus.¹ Besides them there are others such as the Bharatas, Gandhâris, Uśinaras. Some scholars have worked out a gradation of Vedic society. The Grâma or village, perhaps originally the horde, consisted principally of the branches of a family living together. A number of Grâmas formed a viś or canton; lastly, a number of cantons made up a Jana or people. But as Keith has pointed out, these terms are used with distressing vagueness in the Rigveda, that, for instance, the Bharatas can be called at one time a Jana and at another time a Grâma, and that the evidence for the subordination of the Grâma to the Viś is totally wanting.² The term viś often means merely a settlement.³ In the plural it seems to denote subjects.⁴ Nowhere has Viśpati the technical sense of "lord of a canton," viś could not be a normal unit of government.⁵ So we are left with the Jana and Grâma as possible political organisations. Grâma means a collection, a horde, and it is possible that the term originally referred to the wandering tribe or clan. The derivative grâmaṇi, leader of a grâma, might at first have referred to the leader of the moving group. When the horde settled down, grâma would naturally mean the settled horde. It might be applied to a whole tribe. But in course of time the term seems to have been restricted to the smaller settlement, the unit of society, viz., the village. This seems to be the most likely explanation of the ambiguity of the grâma. In any case, references to the grâma as a unit of habitation are numerous. For instance, in a hymn of the second section of the first Maṇḍala Rudra is propitiated in order that all in the grâma may be well-nourished and exempt from disease.¹ In a hymn of the first section of the same Maṇḍala, Agni is invoked as the protector of the people of grâmas.² Even if the significance of grâma be doubtful in the Ṛigveda, it is more than probable that an agricultural people would be divided into villages.