The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c10.s2.t4.1

c10.s2.t4.1

Apparently the supreme councils of Hindu polity, although "permanent" bodies, did not for all practical purposes rise above the pretensions and powers of the Frankish *Champs de Mars* and *Champs de Mai*, or the *officium palatinum* of the Visigoths and the Council of Toledo in Spain.⁵ The *Sabhâ* of Hindu monarchies could not thus be anything more than a privileged oligarchy. And evolutionally speaking, it came to discharge the functions of the democratic *agora* of the Vedic *civitas* in much the same manner as the council of the *witan* in the early English constitution inherited, as a close exclusive body, the status of the ancient Teutonic folk-moot.