The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c7.18

c7.18

In the foregoing account no notice has been taken of autonomous city-sovereignties and independent clan-commonwealths. They were in existence off and on during the extensive ages that gave birth to Vedic literature, the *Jâtakas*, the early Jaina and Buddhist books and the *Mahâbhârata*, down to the beginnings of the Gupta Empire (c 350 A. C.). Some of them are described in the Greek and Latin literature on India and Alexander. These nationalities were republican in type, more or less aristocratic or oligarchic in character, and thus resembled in general features the states of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the mercantile towns of medieval Italy and of the Hanseatic League.