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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c12.s1: Section 2. Three Periods of Hindu Republics

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c12.s1

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Contents

Section 2. Three Periods of Hindu Republics

a) Third Period (c B. C. 150—A. C. 350)

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To begin with the latest epoch of *gaṇas*. The period of about five hundred years (c B. C. 150—c A. C. 350) between the fall of the Maurya and the rise of the Gupta Empires witnessed the growth and development not only of two powerful monarchies, the Kuṣâns in the Northwest and the Andhras in the Deccan, as we have noticed in a preceding chapter, but also of a number of non-monarchical states that were considerable enough to leave a mark on diplomatic history. It is difficult as yet to describe definitely the duration or extent of sovereignty of these states, but numismatic finds clearly point to the fact that the republics which struck coins in the name of the respective peoples covered in their en-tirety the territory separating the southern from the northern power. And in the middle of the fourth century A. C. they served to furnish the *ultima thule* of the Gupta Napoleon's ambitions in the western di-rection. Geographically, therefore, all the independent republics en-joying full sovereignty were located in the Southern Punjab, Rajputana and Malwa.

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The northernmost were the Audumbaras¹ of the Punjab with juris-diction over the Ravi valley. They began to issue coins as a sovereign state during the first century B. C.

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¹ The coins of these *gaṇas* are fully described with illustrations in a chapter of Banerîji's compre-hensive numismatic volume in Bengalı, *Prâchîn Mudrâ* (Ancient Coins), I. (c B. C. 1000—A. C. 1300), pp. 102, 104, 109—120.

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1. The Yaudheyas

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To their south came the Yaudheyas who were known in their heyday as the "heroes among the Kṣatriyas", i. e. the "heroes of heroes". They were an independent power by about B. C. 100.² Their territories com-prised both banks of the Sutlej with spheres of influence occasionally extending to the banks of the Jumna on the east and the regions of Rajputana on the south.

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² Cunningham's *Coins of Ancient India*, p. 66, 75—79.

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In the second century, A. C., Rudra-dâmana³ (125—150) inflicted a defeat on them, but centuries earlier they had come out brilliantly in India's resistance to Alexander. The *mahârâja* or "great chief" (lit. great king) of this *gaṇa* was elected by the people, and he was also the *mahâ-senâpati* (commander-in-chief).

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³ *Ep. Ind.* 1905—06, pp. 44—47; Gup. Insc., p. 252.

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To the south of the Yaudheyas came the Arjunâyanas.⁴ During the first century B. C. and after they were thus in possession of northern Rajputana.⁵

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⁴ Rapson's *Indian Coins*, p. 11.

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⁵ Banerji's *Prâchîn*, p. 109.

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2. The Mâlavas

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Further south, between the Chambal and the Betwa, were settled the Mâlavas.⁶ Their status as an independent republic began sometime during the second century B. C. In the first century A. C. they had to encounter a punitive expedition under General Uṣavadâta,¹ the officer of Satrap Nahapâna, for having entered into an aggressive war with his feudatories, the Uttama-bhadras.

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⁶ *Ibid*, p. 113—117, Majumdar 116.

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¹ *Ep. Ind.* 1905—06, p. 79.

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The western neighbors of the Mâlavas were the Sibis.² Their earliest coins also belong to the end of the second century, B. C.³

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² Rapson, 14.

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³ *Arch. Surv. Rep.* VI, pp. 200—207.

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The Kunindas had their territory most probably adjoining to that of the Yaudheya republic in the east. They held the upper doab of the Ganges and the Jumna, in close proximity to the foot of the Himalayas.⁴ Their earliest coins as an independent state were probably issued in the second century B. C. A neighboring race, the Vriṣṇis,⁵ was likewise a power in the second century, B. C.

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⁴ *Ibid*, XIV, pp. 134—138, 146; Rapson, 12.

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⁵ Majumdar, 119.

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3. Pluralism in Constitutional Life

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During the first century, B. C., therefore, it was possible for the merchants of *Madhyadeśa* (the "middle countries" of Northern India) travelling in the Deccan to tell the subjects of the Ândhra Empire that the "form of government" was diverse in the north. On being asked by Kapphina *le Grand* as to the name of their ruler, as we read in the *Ava-dâna-śataka*⁶ they had to offer in their reply a distinction between the states ruled by *gaṇas* i. e. "*gouverné par une troupe (état republicain)*" and those ruled by kings. The story of the international relations or constitutional changes of the period is not at all clear, really a blank. We know only that in the teeth of Samudra-gupta's *digvijaya*, "conquest of quarters" (330—50), all these republican nations succeeded in maintaining their autonomy by doing homage and paying tribute.⁷ That is, they lost their sovereignty and became feudatories or protectorates of the Gupta Empire.

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⁶ No. 88. See Feer's French transl. p. 337.

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⁷ *Gup. Insc.*, p. 14.

b) Second Period (c. B. C. 350—300)

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These last republics of India were not freaks of Nature on Hindu soil. They were but continuing the political heritage of their great predecessors. Probably the greatest period of Hindu republics lay between the fourth and the sixth centuries B. C. Those republican nationalities were thus contemporaneous with Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Rome. And their ultimate extinction through the establishment of the Maurya Empire (B. C. 323) almost synchronized with the annihilation of the Greek city-states by Philip of Macedon at the battle of Cheronoea (B. C. 338).

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Megasthenes records the Hindu tradition prevailing in his time (B. C. 302) that during a period of 6042 years from the time of "Dionusos to Sandrokottos" a "republic was thrice established" in India.¹ Certain cities are also mentioned by him where "at last the sovereignty was dissolved and democratic government set up".² The Maltecoroe, the Singhoe, the Moruni, the Marohoe and the Rarungi were, as he says, free nations with no kings. They occupied mountain heights where they had built many cities.³ This is the earliest foreign report about the existence of republican states among Hindus.

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¹ Fragment L.

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² Fragment I.

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³ Fragment LVI.

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Nor had republics passed into the domain of legend towards the end of the fourth century B. C. For the India that was encountered by the Greeks who had preceded Megasthenes by about 20 years, i. e., who belonged to Alexander's hordes, previous to Chandra-gupta Maurya's establishment of the empire and expulsion of Seleukos the Greco-Syrian from Aghanistan (B. C. 303), was a land of republics and commonwealths, used to assemblies or senates and leaders or presidents.

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1. Patala

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In the estimation of Greek soldiers, Patala was the Sparta of the Hindus. It was a famous city at the apex of the delta of the Indus. In this community, as Diodorus tells us, the "command in war was vested in two hereditary kings of two different houses, while a council of elders ruled the whole state with paramount authority".⁴

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⁴ Mc. Crindle's *Invasion of India*, p. 296.

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2. The Ârattas

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Large indeed in Alexander's days was the number of democratically governed peoples, with the institutions of *sva-râj* (self-rule), though often of an oligarchic character. One of the most important of these nations was the Ârattas (*Arâṣṭrakas*, i. e. kingless) with their kinsmen, the Kathians. Justin calls them robbers and they are condemned as such in the *Mahâbhârata*. But they proved to be a powerful military aid to Chandra-gupta in his successful wars against Macedonians and Greco- Syrians. It was the splendid assistance rendered by the Ârattas¹ that to a great extent enabled the Hindu commoner to easily clear the Indian borderland of the *mlechchha* (unclean, barbarian) Europeans, and push the northwestern limits of his empire to the "scientific frontier", the Hindukush Mountains.

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¹ *Ibid*, pp. 38, 406.

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3. The Mâlava-Kṣudraka Entente

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Two other nationalities that have a pan-Indian reputation as having figured in the army of the Kurus in the armageddon of the *Mahâbhârata* happened to strike the imagination of the Greeks in an interesting way. These were the Mallois (Mâlavas) and the Oxydrakai (Kṣudrakas).² The former are described by Arrian simply as "a race of independent Indians". But the latter are singled out by him as by far the most attached to freedom and autonomy. From the military standpoint, both were very powerful peoples. But like Athenians and Spartans they had always been used to flying at each other's throats.

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² *Ibid*, p. 140.

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Alexander, however, had to count on a formidable opposition from them. For, as it happened, on this occasion parallel in Hindu annals to the Persian invasion of Greece, the Mâlavas and the Kṣudrakas "resolved to forget old enmities and to make common cause against the invader". The alliance was cemented, as Diodorus narrates, by "wholesale intermarriage, each giving and taking ten thousand young women for wives". The strength of the combined army was 90,000 fully equipped infantry, 10,000 cavalry and about 900 chariots.³

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³ Diodorus, XVII, 98 in Smith's *Early Hist.*, pp. 94—95.

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4. The Sarbacae

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Among the other republican nationalities of the time we know about the Sambastai⁴ (the Sabarcae?), on the statement of Diodorus, that they dwelt in cities with democratic form of administration, and about the Cedrosii (Gedrosioi),⁵ on the report of Curtius, that they were a "free people with a council for discussing important matters of state". Another race is mentioned by Curtius, probably the Sabarcae (?) of Diodorus, as a powerful Indian tribe whose "form of government was democratic and not regal". They had no king but were led by three generals who owed office to election. Their army consisted of 60,000 foot, 6,000 cavalry and 500 chariots.¹ Similarly, the Oreitai, the Abastanoi, the Xathroi (the Kṣatriya), and the Arabitai are four peoples whom Arrian calls "independent tribes with leaders".² Of these the Kṣatriyas were expert naval architects. They supplied Alexander with galleys of thirty oars and transport vessels.³

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⁴ Mc Crindle's *Invasion*, pp. 252, 292.

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⁵ *Ibid*, 262.

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⁶ *Ibid*, 252.

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¹ *Early Hist.*, p. 98.

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² Mc Crindle's *Invasion*, pp. 167, 169, 155, 156.

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³ *Early Hist.*, p. 99.

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5. The Agalassois

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Two other nations came to have close touch with the troops of Alexander. These are the Agalassoi and the Nysaians. The former, as Curtius says, put up a strong resistance to the Greek invaders, and may be taken to have been the first historic protagonists of Hindu *Bushido* or Kṣatriyaism. For when they were defeated by the enemy, these gallant patriots preferred death to dishonor and national humiliation. Accordingly they "set fire to the town and cast themselves with their wives and children into the flames".⁴ Thus, in the pride of nationalism, which was subsequently fostered also on the occasion of Moslem invasions in the Middle Ages, has to be sought one of the feeders of the custom that in subsequent ages came to be practised exclusively by women, viz., the *satî* (the self-immolation of widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands).

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⁴ *Ibid*, p. 93.

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6. The Nysaians

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The Nysaians⁵ are described by Arrian as a free commonwealth. They had a president, but the government of their state was entrusted to the aristocracy. This aristocratic element was represented by the council of three hundred wise men. One hundred of these senators were called for by Alexander. "How, o King!" was the reply of the president of the Nysaian Republic to this suggestion of the Macedonian, "can a single city, if deprived of a hundred of its best men, continue to be well governed?" The reply was characteristic of the political mentality of the republican Hindus of the Punjab and Northwestern India who presented single or united fronts against Alexander's Indian adventure (B. C. 327—324).⁶

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⁵ Mc Crindle's *Invasion*, pp. 79, 80, 81; Arrian, v, ii.

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⁶ Smith's "Position of the Autonomous Tribes of the Punjab" in the *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 1903, pp. 685—702.

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7. Republicanism Militant

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This militant republicanism was no less troublesome a thorn in the side of the contemporary Indian adventurer. The task of achieving imperial nationalism that lay before the commoner Chandra-gupta Maurya was not an easy job. For in addition to subjugating the kingdoms and lesser empires that had been in existence since the days of Ajâtaśatru, the "new nationalist" of the fourth century B. C. had to make a clean sweep of the powerful republican states that enjoyed absolute sovereignty here and there and everywhere throughout Northern India.

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*Pax Sârva-bhaumica* could not be attained until the diplomacy¹ of his finance minister had extirpated the democratic *gaṇas* of the Madras (of the Central Punjab) and the Kukuras (of the lower Indus), the Kurus and Pânchâlas (of the Upper Gangetic Valley), and the Vrijjikas, Lichchhavikas and Mallakas of the eastern provinces.² It was not exclusively by methods of "open war" that these republics were crushed. For, like the latest expert in his profession in Eur-America, Kautilya was too proud a master of the "human nature in politics" to advise the use of "blood and iron" in season and out of season. The Macedonian "wiles" which made the oracles of Greece to "philippize" and Demosthenes to wrangle with Aeschines over a lump of the enemy's gold were accordingly reproduced in the politics of the East.

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¹ *Artha*, Bk. XI, Ch. I.

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² *Ibid.*

c) First Period (c B. C. 600—450)

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1. Eleven Republics

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This cluster of republics represented evidently the survival of a type of polity thad had been more or less uniformly distributed throughout the Hindu world, at least in the Indo-Gangetic plains. An older link in the chain of India's political evolution is furnished by the commonwealths of the fifth and sixth centuries B. C. And it is to the eastern regions of Northern India, roughly speaking, to the modern province of Bihar, that we have to turn our eyes for these oldest historical specimens of Hindu republics.

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These republican peoples were eleven in number.³ In regard to eight of them there is hardly any information of political importance. The Bhaggas had their headquarters in Sumsumâra Hill, the Bulis in Allakappa, and the Kalamas in Kesaputta. Pipphalivana was the territory of the Moriyâs, and Râmagâma of the Koliyas. There were three branches of the Mallas, one with sovereignty in Kusinârâ, the second in Pava, and the third in Kâsi.¹ The most important of these eleven nations were the Sâkiyas of Kapila-vastu, the Videhas of Mithilâ and the Lichchhavis of Vesâli. The last two were amalgamated and went by the name of Vajjians.

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³ Rhys Davids gives ten.

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¹ This is the eleventh. Jacobi's *Jaina Kalpasûtra*, p. 65. Vide Pandey's "Vajji Country and the Mallas of Pava" in the *Hind. Rev.* (May-June 1920).

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Readers of the *Kunâla Jâtaka*² are aware that the Sâkiyas had a fight with their neighbours, the Koliyâs. The *casus belli* was economic. Each state wanted to monopolize the Rohinî River for irrigating its own agricultural lands. Princes of monarchical states often entered into matrimonial relations with the leaders of these *gaņas*. The *Bhadda Sâla Jâtaka*³ narrates the story of King Pasendi's proposal to the Sâkiyas to give him a daughter in marriage. We know from the same *Jâtaka* that the Lichchhavis had a fracas with the generalissimo of the Kosala monarchy. The cause was the violation of a republican sentiment. The wife of the general had bathed in the waters of their holy tank at Vesâli, and thus defiled the reservoir that was consecrated to the investiture of the republic's legislators. The "marvellous prosperity" of the Lichchhavi capital is referred to in the *Ekapanna Jâtaka*⁴ which also describes the "triple wall" of the city, "each wall a league distant from the next", — with the usual gates and watch-towers.

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² No. 536.

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³ No. 465.

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⁴ No. 149.

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2. The Sâkiyas

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No republic in mankind's ancient history can surpass the Sâkiya republic in the magnitude of its influence on world-culture. For, the region over which it had authority has for two thousand and five hundred years remained the Jerusalem of Buddhism, the *Tien-chu* ("Heaven") of the Chinese and the *Tenjiku* of the Japanese. Sâkya the Buddha (or Awakened) was, as the name implies, a citizen of the commonwealth of the Sâkiyas. His father Suddhodana and cousin Bhaddiya were archons of this state. The common tradition that Sâkya renounced princedom is erroneous. For he was not a prince at all but only the son of a president.⁵

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⁵ *Buddhist India*, pp. 19, 22, 41.

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The Sâkiyas numbered one million strong. Their territory lay about fifty miles east to west and extended thirty or forty miles south from the foot of the Himalayas. The administrative and judicial business of this republic was carried out in a public assembly, the Senate. The civic center of Kapila-vastu, the capital, as that of other cities, of the nation, was the *santhâgâra* or the mote-hall. The young and old alike took part in the deliberations as to the government of the country. The chief was elected by the people. He used to preside over the sessions as chief judge. The title of the president was *râjâ* (literally, king).¹ It corresponded in reality to the consul in Rome and the archon in Athens. And if the emissaries that Pyrrhus of Epirus sent to republican Rome (B. C. 280) could not describe the Roman Senate except as an "assembly of kings" there was nothing specifically undemocratic in the honorific title of *râjâ* for the chief executive of a Hindu republic.

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3. The United States of the Vajjis

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The republic of the Vajjians was a United States of ancient India. It was a federation formed by the union of eight nations¹ that had formerly been distinct and independent of one another. Vesâli was the headquarters of this federal republic. The two most prominent of the members in this union were the Videhas and the Lichchhavis. The Videhas had once been citizens of a monarchical state, and their original territory covered 2300 miles. The Lichchhavis of a certain period used to elect a triumvirate of three archons to conduct their administration.¹

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¹ *Buddhist India*, pp. 19, 22, 41.

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The Senate or general assembly of the Lichchhavi *gaṇa* appears to have been a very large body. In the stories of the *Ekapanna Jâtaka* ² and the *Chulla-Kalinga Jâtaka*,³ the conventional number of congressmen or senators, known usually as *râjâs*, is given as 7707. Evidently the "young and old" are to be included in the huge membership of this folk-parliament. These *râjâs* were not only legislators, but seem to have been "viceroys" (vice-presidents?), generals and treasurers" as well. In other words, they were "given to argument and disputation" not only over the questions of custom or law, but also over those affecting the bureaucratic administration, national defense or peace and war, and public finance. All the interests of the state must have been publicly discussed by the central council of the republic.⁴ The cabinet of this mammoth assembly was however quite a manageable body. It consisted of nine *gaṇa-râẏâṇas*⁵ (i. e., ministerial chiefs or kings) to represent the entire state. Corresponding to the *Yajnas*¹ or sacrifices and anointments of all monarchies, Hindu and Christian, the Lichchhavis had an investiture ritual too. A sprinkling² of the senators with the waters of the tank at Vesâli was apparently an incident in the political ceremonial of the *gaṇa*.

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² No. 149.

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³ No. 301.

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⁴ The interpretation offered here is substantially different from that given by Majumdar (pp. 92—94). Here as in the Tamil rotation of offices (*Supra*, p. 54) we have to observe *l'amateurisme démocratique* of which Joseph-Barthélemy speaks in *Problème de la compétence*, pp. 11—12, 16—17.

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⁵ Jacobi, p. 65.

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¹ *Infra* p. 225.

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² *Bhaddasâla Jâtaka* (No. 465).

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Quite in keeping with the almost mobocratic consitution of the Lichchhavi Senate the organization of the judiciary was democratic to the nth term of utopian idealism. The Vajjian Confederacy acquired from the Lichchhavis their system of judicial proceedings described in the *Atthakathâ*.³ In order to be convicted as criminal the defendant had unanimously to be found guilty by seven tribunals of the hierarchy in succession, but if innocent, could be discharged by each of them. The officers who tried him in the first instance were called *vinichchiya mahâmâtta* (chief judicial officers). If proved innocent, he might be acquitted forthwith. But if guilty in their finding, he had automatically to face a second trial by the *vohârikas* (i. e. *vyavahârikas* or lawyers). The next higher courts to examine the evidence as to guilt were those of the *sutta-dhara* (maintainers of the Canonical *Suttas*), *atṭha kulaka* (council of judges from the eight clans), *senâpati* (commander in chief) and the *upa-râja* or vice-president. The highest court was that of the *râjâ* or president who alone had the authority to declare the accused guilty and was the final judge also as to the penalty. The sentence had to be passed, however, according to “case-law” recorded in the *paveni-pustaka*, i. e. the book of precedents.⁴

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³ Turnour's “Examination of the Pali Buddhistical Annals” in the *Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal*, 1838, pp. 993—994.

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⁴ The alleged Tibetan (Mongolian) origin of the Lichchhavi judiciary has been examined by Hemchandra Ray Chaudhuri in the article on the “Lichchhavis of Vaisali” in the *Mod. Rev.* for July, 1919.

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4. Division of Power

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It is evident that few, if any, of these republics had their jurisdiction confined to single villages or cities like the ordinary commonwealths of Greece or the town states of Hansa. The *gaṇas* have, generally speaking, to be treated not in terms of thousands of citizens, but of millions and not in terms of scores of square miles, but of hundreds or thousands. The Sâkiya and Vajji states should accordingly have to be understood as bearing resemblance to the Athenian republic of Attica (or the Periclean “empire” of Athens) and the “dominion of a city over cities”

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known as the republic of Rome, or to the extensive oligarchies of mediæval Italy named after prominent cities like Florence, Venice, Genoa, and so forth.

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The question of "local government" was therefore an important one to the *gaṇa-râyaṇas* of Buddha's time (B. C. 623—543). It is interesting to observe that the management of affairs of the rural areas of these republics was not the monopoly of the male sex. The laying out of parks, the erection of communal halls, rest-houses and reservoirs, and the construction and mending of roads between village and village were undertaken by men and women in joint committees.¹

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¹ Supra, p. 52.

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5. Śakya, the Anti-Monarchist

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The principles of the Sâkiya republic, nay, the entire philosophy of democratic republicanism found an able exponent in Śâkya, the Buddha, who, though he renounced the family-ties, remained an active propagandist all his life. And the propaganda embraced lectures² as much on constitutional law, trial by jury, *res judicata*, government by the majority, the importance of public meetings, and all other branches of civic life, as on the pathway to salvation and the elimination of misery from the world of men.

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² Supra, pp. 37—40.

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He had great interest in the welfare of the Vajjian Confederacy and was almost the political and spiritual adviser of its council of elders. During the last days of this republic, while it was singing the swan-song of its sovereign existence owing to the threat of Ajataśatru, King of Magadha, that he would extirpate the Vajjians "mighty and powerful though they be", it was Śâkya's anti-monarchism and republican fervor that kept up the spirit of resistance among the Senators sufficiently high to enable them to accept the royal challenge. For they were heartened by Sâkya's judgment that the Vajjians could not be overcome by the king in battle as long as their federation was unbroken.³

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³ *Dialogues of the Buddha*, Vol. II (*Mahâ-pari-nibbâna-suttânta*).

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6. The Civilization of Republican India

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The cultural achievements of republican India might easily be belittled. But let students of the history of civilization compare the contributions of the age of Hindu republics with the values of European culture from Pythagoras to Plato, and from the expulsion of the Tarquins to Augustus Caesar, such as Dopsch, for instance, describes in *Wirtschaft-* *liche und Soziale Grundlagen der europäischen Kultur*. In an inventory of India's contributions¹ to the spirit of inquiry and the progress of mankind the epoch of republics (c B. C. 600—A. C. 350), interspersed no doubt with monarchies, must be recognized as responsible for the anatomy, therapeutics and medicine of Charaka's academy, the linguistics and methodology of Pâṇiṇi and his scholars, the metallurgy and alchemy that found patron-saints in Patanjali and Nâgârjuna, the philosophical speculations of the atomists (*Vaiśeṣika*), monists (*Vedânta*), sensationalists (*Chârvâka*), and sceptics (*Lokâyata*), the schools of political science that came to be finally absorbed in the systems of Kautilya and Śukra, the legal and sociological theories associated in the long run with the *nom-de-plumes* of Manu and Yâjna-valkya, the elaboration of the *Jâtaka* folklore and of the *Râmâyaṇa* and *Mahâbhârata* epics, dramaturgy and fine arts of the Bharata² and Bâtsâyana³ cycles, the mystical militarism and *niṣkâma karma* or "categorical imperative" of the *Gîtâ*, and last, but not least, the *sarva-sattva-maitrî*⁴ (humanitarianism and universal brotherhood) of Sâkya, the preacher of *appamâda* (strenuousness) and apostle of *viriya* (energism).

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¹ Seal's *Positive Sciences of the Ancient Hindus*, Mitra's *Indian Mathematics*, Ray's *History of Hindu Chemistry*, Sarkar's *Hindu Achievements in Exact Science*.

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² *Annales du Musée Guimet*, Vols I and II; Text in the *Kâvya-mâlâ Series*; Sylvain Levi's *Theater Indien*.

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³ cf. Jolly's *Recht*, 46, 50, 53, etc. See also his "*Kollektaneen zum Kautilya Arthaśâstra*" in the *Zeit. deut. morg. Ges.* (1914).

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⁴ *Saddharma-pundarika* (Lotus of the True Law), p. 234; S. B. E. Vol. XXI, p. 222.

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