The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c12.s2.6

c12.s2.6

Secondly, the so-called village communities, those "little republics", were not independent of the kingdoms and empires. They did not enjoy the rights of "sovereignty" in historical times. In Vedic India they may have been conterminous with the autonomous tribes. Subsequently they may have continued for some time as urban or rural republics. But during the period under survey they remained normally but the lowest rungs of the ladder in a system of imperialism, i. e. of centralized national administration.