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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9: Chapter III. Hindu Achievements in Organization

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9

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English

Contents

Chapter III. Hindu Achievements in Organization

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Section 1.

Section 1. Property and Woman in Private Law

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[The bed-rock of modern legal institutions is twofold. First, the individual adult is treated as an entity quite independent of the family, the village, the gild or any other corporation. Secondly, the woman is juridically a *selb-ständig* i. e. self-sufficient unit enjoying rights different from, and independent of, those of the man, even of the husband.]

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In Europe, and especially in America it is the "industrial revolution" (with its concomitant mobility of labor and more or less freedom of economic competition) that is chiefly responsible for the daily advancing social and political equalization. And no doubt the impact of this new democracy has powerfully influenced the foundations of organized life in Asia also, from Tokyo to Cairo.

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[But it is interesting to observe that even under ancient and mediæval conditions the legal sense of Hindus was akin to and approached the "modern" conscience in both these postulates of civic existence. Thus, for instance, the emancipation of the individual from the head of the family was effected very early in Hindu law. It is embodied in the institution of inheritance and partition of property *per stirpes* (i. e. per stocks) as opposed to that *per capita* (i. e. per head).¹

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¹ For the relations between Manu, Vijnâneśvara and Jîmûtavâhana on the question of individualism in property rights see Radhakamal Mukerjee's *Foundations of Indian Economics*, pp. 20—21; Maine's *Early History of Institutions*, Lect XI, p. 328.

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[A has two sons, B and C. B dies after leaving two children, 1 and 2, and C dies after leaving four, a, b, c, and d. On the death of the grandfather, A, the Hindu law of succession to A's property will keep the stocks of the two sons (B and C) separate; and one half of the inheritance will be divided between the two grandchildren (1 and 2), and the other half between the four grandchildren (a, b, c, and d). This is known as division *per stirpes*; the tendency of more developed and modern law on the subject is to prefer this mode of partition.]

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But in less developed and in archaic or primitive systems, although not invariably, if we accept Lowie’s sociology of ancient institutions, the property is divided equally between all the six grandchildren, share and share alike. This mode, or partition *per capita*, will not consider the claims of the fathers (B and C) as of any importance at all, but place the entire jurisdiction or dominion within the grandfather’s will or cognizance.

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But the importance of the father as an individual is recognized as greater than that of the grandfather in the matter of partitioning the grandfather’s property according to Jîmûta-vâhana’s *Dâya-bhâga* school of law, prevalent in Bengal since the twelfth century, which, although professedly a digest of all ancient codes, attaches special prominence to Manu (A. C. 150). The same system is followed in Vijnâneśvara’s *Mitâkṣarâ*, a commentary (eleventh century) on the *Institutes* of Yâjnavalkya, (A. C. 350), another old jurist, which has authority in every part of India including Bengal.¹ Individualism was thus held in high respect in the judicial psychology of the Hindus.

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¹ G. C. Sarkar’s *Hindu Law*, pp. 27—29; V. N. Mandlik’s *Hindu Law* (Texts and translations of Vyavahâra Mayûkha and *Yâjnavalkya Smriti*); Colebrooke’s *Two Treatises on the Hindu Law of Inheritance (Dâyabhâga and Mitâkṣarâ)*; Jolly’s *Hindu Law of Partition, Inheritance, and Adoption*, pp. 9—30; Jolly’s *Recht und Sitte*, pp. 87—92; Mitra’s *Law Relating to Hindu Widow*, pp. 61—69.

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Secondly, in regard to the legal status of woman, both Jîmûta-vâhana and Vijnâneśvara declare *strîdhana*² or “woman’s special property” incapable of alienation, on the basis of older authorities. In Hindu India the husband³ has absolutely no right to whatever a woman may have “acquired by inheritance, purchase, partition, seizure or finding”, — the five origins of property in Gautama’s jurisprudence.⁴ Besides, when the husband dies, sonless Hindu widows⁵ have for ages been entitled to enjoy the husband’s property for life. But the right does not extend to alienation except under specified conditions.

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² *Yâj*, 145; *Dâya*, Ch IV, sec I, 1, 2; *Mit*, Ch II, sec XI, 2; *Manu*, IX, 194 (“sixfold” property of woman); Jolly’s *Hindu Law*, pp. 226—261.

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³ *Yâj*, 147; *Mit*, Ch II, sec XI, 31, 32. See Mackenzie's *Studies in Roman Law*, pp. 92, 93 (parapherna).

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⁴ X, 115; For “seven modes” of acquiring property vide *Manu* X, 115; cf. also *Manu*, IX, 44; Jolly's *Recht*, pp. 90—92.

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⁵ *Dâya*, Ch XI, sec I, 2, 3; *Mit*, Ch II, sec I, 2, 3.

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"Nowhere", then, as Gooroodas Banerjee¹ remarks, "were the proprietary rights of women recognized so early as in India; and in very few ancient systems of law have these rights been so largely conceded as in our own. In certain cases *** a woman's dominion over her *strîdhana* is absolute".

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¹ ^1 *Hindu Law of Marriage and Strîdhana*, p. 312; cf. Gibelin's *Etudes sur le Droit Civil des Hindous*, Vol. I, p. 111.

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The Code Napoleon and the Continental laws based on it give the wife an absolute right to only a part of her property, the *parapherna*. But the rest has to be added to the common household as *dot*. This law of *dot*, which, again, is really a continuation of the law of *dos* in the *Institutes* of Justinian, is thus less developed than the Hindu law of *strîdhana*.

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The Married Women's Property Act (1886) of England is, according to Boutmy in his *Essai d'une psychologie politique du peuple anglais au XIX^e siècle*, essentially distinct from the Napoleonic and continental codes in so far as it gives independence to women proprietors. But even this Act falls short of the Hindu. Because, as Maine² explains it, not only has the Hindu woman "singularly full power of dealing with the *strîdhana*, — not only is the husband debarred from intermeddling with it save in extreme distress, -- but when the proprietress dies, there is a special order of succession³ to her property, which is manifestly intended to give a preference, wherever it is possible, to female relations over males".

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² ^2 *Early History*, Lect XI, p. 334. cf. Coomaraswamy's *Mediaeval Sinhalese Art*, p. 35 for the corresponding position of the Ceylonese woman. *Vide* Boutmy's *English People*, pp. 115-216.

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³ ^3 *Mit*, Ch II, sec XI, 9, 12, 13; Ch I, sec III, 8, 9, 10. But the *Dâya* law (Ch IV, sec II) is different.

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One need not read into all this a conscious anticipation in India of the theory adumbrated by Mill in his *Subjection of Women*. We are not confronting here the feminism of today, i. e. the economic independence and political enfranchisement of women such as are advocated by Bebel the German socialist in his classic on *Woman*. Rather, on the whole, the mind of the Hindu in regard to Private Law was, to all intents and purposes, not much distinct from that of the European.

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But first, it should be realized, however, that so far as the *pater-familias* of the patriarchal family is concerned, the spirit of Hindu jurisprudence was not more servile than that of the early Roman Twelve Tables (B. C. 452). Secondly, the ecclesiastical law of Europe provides that the first charge of a man's property is the purchase of "masses" for his soul. And here the Roman Catholic meets on a common platform the Hindu with his doctrine of "spiritual benefit",¹ according to which property is generally held to be intended for the discharge of sacrificial duties (*pinda*) for the manes of the dead.

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¹ G. C. Sarkar, Ch IX, pp. 311—317. For the resemblances between Hindu, Greek, Roman and Germanic laws see Gibelin, Vol. I, pp. 52—55, 85, 114, 292, 302.

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Culturally speaking, besides, the mentality of the Hindu woman will be found to be identical with that of the Latin (French and Italian) as described in Joseph-Barthélemy's *Le Vote des Femmes*. Nay, it will be not much different from the female *psyche* of the United States in the early nineteenth century as analyzed by Calhoun in his *Social History of the American Family*.

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Institutional *Viriya* (Energism).

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Now that during the epoch of the "white man's burthen" the Hindu has been deprived of the chances for displaying an aggressive secularism except, if at all, only as a "second fiddle" to the "natural master", there has grown up a general scepticism among Eur-American scholars even as to the capacity of Hindus for organized activity and institutional achievements.² This occidental suspicion about the Orient has absolutely no foundation in facts. The Hindu *viriya* (i. e. energy or genius) for organization and cooperative endeavor has exhibited itself as much in the political as in the non-political spheres of social life.

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² Smith's *Early Hist.*, pp. 357, 477; *Akbar*, 385; Ox. Hist., pp. XI, XII. Majumdar's *Corporate Life in Ancient India* is a reply to the sweeping statements of Smith, as Mookerji's *History of Indian Shipping* is to the conventional theory regarding the alleged "splendid isolation" of Hindu culture.

(a) Samgha ("group-person")

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One Hindu institution at least is known to orientalists. This is the *samgha* or church of Buddhist Asia. Necessarily it is as old as Śâkya the Buddha (B. C. 623—543). It has really had a longer history, since in Pâṇini³ the philologist's time (B. C. 650) *samgha* was the "generic" term for any public body, incorporated association or corporation. Its social significance was equivalent to that of the Greek *polis* (lit. city)

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³ III, 3, 42; V. 3, 112—114; Majumdar, p. 90; Mookerji's *Local*, 32, 33; Bhandarkar's *Anc. His. Ind.*, pp. 141—153. For the date of Pâṇini see R. G. Bhandarkar's discussion in the *Bombay Gazetteer*, 1896, Vol. I, pt. II, p. 141, *The Pos. Back. Hind. Soc.*, Vol. I, p. 69, and Jayaswal's note in the *Ind. Ant.*, May, 1918. For *polis* cf. Gilbert Murray's *Rise of the Greek Epic*, pp. 31, 79, Schömann's *Antiquities of Greece*, 91, 92, 95, 96, 121, 122, and Dunning's *Political Theories*, Vol. I, 51, 55, 56.

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as popularized by the political philosophers of Hellas. The different organized bodies of the seventh century B. C. were known as *samghas* of different species.

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Thus there was the *pûga* characterized as *samgha* of a special denomination. It was a corporation of men I) belonging to different social groups (*nânâ-jâtîyâh*) and (II) practising diverse (no regular or fixed) professions (*aniyata-vrittayah*), but (III) distinguished from other *samghas* by having a preponderance of economic or secular interests (*artha-kâma-pradhânâh*). Such an association was either a rural commune or a *municipium*.

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A second *samgha* of the day was the *vrâta*. It was similar to the *pûga* in having the first two "properties"; but its *differentium* was indicated by the concept of *utsedha-jîvinah*, i. e., the profession of blackmailing, brigandage or hooliganism as a regular means of livelihood. The European counterpart of the Hindu *vrâta* was the order of *Ritter* or "Knights" whose exploits have received a romantic treatment in Goethe's *Götz* and Schiller's *Räuber*. The modern Bengali novelist Bankim Chandra Chatterji's *Ânanda Matha* (The Abbey of Bliss) is likewise an idealization of a similar corporation.

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The *âyûdha-jîvi samgha* was a third organized body of Pâṇiṇi's days. As the name implies, it was an association of men who "lived by the profession of arms". Men proficient in military tactics used evidently to incorporate themselves into bands, and were available most probably for mercenary service. This *samgha* was therefore distinct from the *vrâta*.

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The world into which Śâkya was born was thus familiar with several incorporated associations.¹ It was only a commonplace floating term of the period that Buddhist *Vinaya* (discipline, organization, government) literature of the fourth century B. C. adopted as the name of an ecclesiastical polity.

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¹ Fick's *Die Soziale Gliederung im nordöstlichen Indien zu Buddha's Zeit*, pp. 172—183 (chapter on *Die Gilden der Kaufleute und Handwerken*).

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But the secular significance of the term continued to prevail as current as ever. For, about the same time the school of politics associated with the name of Kautilya² described all corporate bodies by Pâṇiṇi's term. In the Kautilyan category there were at least two classes of *samgha*. One class consisted of those who "lived by the science of economics" (*vârtâ-śâstropa-jîvinah*) i. e., were engaged in farming, industry, commerce or banking. To the other class belonged those with whom the "epithet of *râjâ* or King was a source of social existence", i. e., who were rulers by profession. In Kautilya's days, therefore, the ordinary *śreṇî* or gild was as good a *saṃgha* as the republic or non-monarchical body of people among whom "every person is a *râjâ*".

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² *Artha-śâstra*, Bk XI, ch. 1.

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Thus during the period that closed with Alexander's failure in India and Chandragupta Maurya's expulsion of Hellenistic Greeks from Afghanistan Hindus were used to at least six classes of public association, viz. the *pûga*, the *vrâta*, the *âyûdha-jîvi*, the *śreṇî*, the *râjâ*, and the *vihâra* (monastery or church). While the first four would have been usually known by their special names, the common term *saṃgha* would have denoted the republics of the Lichchhavikas, Vrijjikas and others as well as the ecclesiastical organization of Buddhist monks.

(b) Samûha ("group-person")

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In the later literature of political institutions the term *saṃgha* seems to have dropped out of general use. The most "generic" term for *polis* with the authors of the *smṛiti-śâstras*, at any rate, is *samûha*. In the fourth century A. C. Yâjnavalkya¹ used it generically for any corporation. *Samûhas* were known to be divided into various classes differing from one an other according to the nature of objects for which the association was instituted or the kind of persons organizing themselves into a *polis*. One of these was the *śreṇî*, i. e. gild, a second was the *naigama* (also *nigama*) or body of traders (the "gild merchant"), and a third was the *pâṣaṇḍi*, or group of socio-religious heretics and dissenters, e. g., Buddhists, Jainas and other denominations; and *gaṇa* (town) was the fourth.

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¹ II, 192.

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The use of *samûha* as a "genus" is to be noticed in Mitra Miśra's *Vîra-mitrodaya*,² a commentary on Yâjnavalkya. For according to him the *pûga* is a particular class of *samûha*. It was made up of those who "lived at the same place", but belonged to different social orders, the so-called castes, and followed different professions. It was thus a territorial concept, the term for a village or town, having the same connotation as in the grammar of Pâṇiṇi. In Vijnâneśvara,³ also, another commentator of Yâjnavalkya, *samûha* is generic, for he defines *gaṇa* to be a division of *samûha* and considers *grâma* (village) and other settled areas as belonging to this species. The same use of *samûha* is to be seen in Kâtyâyana,⁴ a jurist cited by Mitra Miśra.

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² Majumdar, 17, 58; Mookerji's *Local*, 31.

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³ Majumdar, 17, 58; Mookerji's *Local*, 31.

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⁴ Majumdar, 17, 58; Mookerji's *Local*, 31.

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The milieu that produced the *dharma* or *smriti śâstras* (law-books) was therefore one in which at least four or five institutions, the *śreṇî*, the *naigama*, the *pâṣaṇḍi*, the *gaṇa* or the *pûga* were centres of public life.¹ The common name for all of these bodies was *samûha*.

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¹ Jolly's *Recht*, p. 136.

(c) Gaṇa (municipium and republic)

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But it would appear that people were using some of these terms interchangeably. The same institution was being described by different names, and the same name was being given to different institutions. We have just noticed that Vijnâneśvara uses *gaṇa* where Mitra Miśra employs *pûga* to denote the identical "group-person". Both commentators were right because their common authority Yâjnavalkya² himself was responsible for the confusion, as he had used *gaṇa* in the sense of a town-corporation. Nârada³ (450 A. C.), another jurist who preceded these scholiasts had also done the same. Indeed the same confusion is to be noticed in all writings on *smriti* (tradition) and *dharma* (law).⁴ Kâtyâyana similarly identifies *gaṇa*⁵ with *pûga* when he defines it as a *samûha* of *kulas* or families.

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² II, 8, 187—192, 361.

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³ Introduction, I, 7, X, 2.

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⁴ Manu III, 164, IV, 209; cf. also Śukra, IV, v, 59—62.

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⁵ *Viramitrodaya*, p. 426; Majumdar's interpretation (p. 94) of Kâtyâyana's passage is untenable; cf. Mookerji's *Local*, 30.

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During the early centuries of the Christian era, the term *gaṇa* appears to have been elevated one flight up in the series of "communities". From its status as the name of a *grâma* and *pura*, the *domus* and *civitas* of mediæval European jurisdictions, it came to imply also the *regnum* of a whole people, thus giving rise to another confusion in language. In the eulogies on military triumphs or other meritorious deeds inscribed by poets of the period we find the term being used to describe the association of "self-rulers", i. e., of "poly-archal" peoples organized on the principle of *sva-râj*. Republican nationalities of the Yaudheyas, Mâlavas and others are thus known as *gaṇas* in the coins⁶ and inscriptions⁷ of the Ândhra-Kuṣân and Gupta times. The poets of the *Mahâbhârata*⁸ also described the states in which all were "equal" by the same epithet.

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⁶ Cunningham's *Coins of Ancient India*, pp. 76—79; Rapson's *Indian Coins*, p. 15; Banerji's *Prâchîn Mudrâ* (Ancient Coins), Ch. VI.

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⁷ Fleet's *Gupta Inscriptions*, pp. 14, 152. *Ep. Ind.* 1905—06, pp. 44—47.

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⁸ *Śânti*, Ch. CVII, 31—32.

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Neither *samûha* nor *gaṇa*⁹ seems ever to have acquired the comprehensive connotation of *samgha*. But the diversity of Gierke's "group persons" in Hindu public life through the ages is self-evident. The attempt on the part of grammarians, logicians, political theorists and lawyers to analyze the concept of a public body and differentiate its various species is also significant. The story of Hindu public life has therefore partially to be sought in the development of *samghas*, *samûhas* and *gaṇas*,¹ the different categories of what may be called the Asian *polis*.

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⁹ Note the use of *gaṇa* in Jaina literature. cf. Jacobi's *Jaina Sutras*, 113, 273, 286, 306.

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¹ ^1 A brochure given over to the analysis of these and other new terms in indology from the constitutional and economic viewpoints is a desideratum for comparative politics.

Section 3. Organized Charities and Utilities

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As specimens of Hindu energism in group-activity let us begin with organization in social service or welfare work. In Europe the hospital was unknown until Emperor Constantine (306—337) founded it for the first time in the fourth century A. C. But in India the first hospitals both for animals and human beings were founded at least as early as the third century B. C. by Asoka the Great.² And about 400 A. C. among the institutions that drew the notice of Fa Hien,³ the Chinese scholar-saint, at Pâtali-putra, the capital of the Gupta Empire, we are told of the free hospitals "founded by the respectable nobles and landowners of the country". These were resorted to by "the poor of all countries, the destitute, cripples and the diseased", and every kind of requisite help was offered gratuitously.

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² ^2 Rock Edict II.

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³ ^3 Beal's *Travels of Fa Hien and Sung Yung*, p. 107. For the political "immunities" of a village belonging to a hospital in Ceylon *vide* p. 75.

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Similarly Hindu public life can count in its manifold experience the founding and maintenance of *pariṣats* (academies) for the prosecution of research in the arts and sciences, as well as of educational institutions of ambitious scope and encyclopaedic character. It was in the hands of scholars who graduated from such centres of learning that the administration of government was entrusted.⁴ One such institution was the University at Nâlandâ in Eastern India (Bihar), founded by Emperor Narasimha-gupta Bâlâditya (*c.* 469—473). Itsing, the Chinese scholar, was an alumus of this university for ten years (675—685) in the departments of medicine and logic. The number of residents at Nâlandâ exceeded 3000, was between 3500 and 5000, at that time. The lands possessed by the University comprised more than 200 villages, the gifts of kings for several generations.¹ Itsing mentions eight halls and three hundred apartments among the buildings of the institution.²

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⁴ ^4 Takakusu's *Itsing: Record of the Buddhist Religion*, Ch. XXXIV, p. 177.

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¹ *Ibid*, Ch. X, p. 65.

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² *Ibid*, Ch. XXXII, 154.

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The Nâlandâ corporation was a residential-teaching university like the *El Azhar* at Cairo and gave instruction, room, board, and medicine free of any cost whatsoever. Hiuen Thsang was very much impressed by its architectural magnificence. "The richly adorned towers", as we read in his Chinese biography, "and the fairy-like turrets, like pointed hill-tops are congregated together. The observatories seem to be lost in the vapors of the morning and the upper rooms tower above the clouds".³ This was the institution that inspired in subsequent years the monastery-college at Horiyuji near Nara in Japan. And it is on record that the Afghan scholar Vîra-deva was elected Chancellor here in the ninth century then enjoying the patronage of Deva-pâla,⁴ the Bengali *sârvabhauma* of Eastern India. It is obvious that for several centuries after their establishment the Universities of Bologna, Paris and Oxford⁵ would certainly have envied the material endowments and international reputation enjoyed by the presidents and faculties of Nâlandâ for about seven hundred years (c 500—1200). The long story of this university bears undoubted testimony to the continuous and cumulative organizing ability of the race in which it flourished.

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³ Beal's *Life of Hiuen Thsiang*, pp. 110—112.

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⁴ *Ind. Ant.*, 1888, pp. 308—309, 311.

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⁵ Leach's *Educational Charters and Documents* (A. C. 598—1909), pp. xxii—xxvii, 276.

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A very interesting *sâhitya pariṣat* (literary academy) of southern India was the *Sangam* of the Tamils⁶ at Madura. Early in the Christian era in this Pandyan city a body of censors formed themselves into an institution to correct the abuses of literature. The third of these *Sangams* was in existence in the second century. Forty nine critics and poets were members of this association, which thus anticipated by about fifteen hundred years the French Academy founded by Richelieu (1637) in its aim at checking the growth of literary weeds. The *Sangam* enjoyed the patronage of the state for several generations. Its influence on the people may be gathered from the fact that the celebrated Tamil classic, the *Kural* of Tiru-valluvar, received the imprimatur of the academy before king Ugra-Peruvalludhi. It is interesting to note that the author himself was not a member of the association. Similarly the two other masterpieces of the Augustan age of Tamil literature, viz., the *Epic of the Anklet* and the *Jewel-Belt*, were submitted to the examination of this body of connoisseurs.

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⁶ Aiyangar's *Anc. Ind.*, pp. 70, 337, 359, 360, 379—382.

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*Pariṣats* or academies, whether stationary or peripatetic, have indeed existed in India since time immemorial. Medicine, grammar, logic, chemistry, mathematics, political science, jurisprudence, almost every branch of learning has grown up in India through the clubbing of intellects. Cooperative researches have been the tradition of intellectual life among Hindus. As a result of these corporate investigations we know today only of "schools" or "systems" of thought, very rarely of the individuals who built them up through the ages. Most of the names in the annals of science and philosophy in India are those of masters or pioneers, and these again, are but pseudonyms associated with the patronymic saints or gods, the Prometheuses and Apollos of Hindu culture.

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It is this collective or *pariṣadic* origin that explains why the treatises on arts and sciences in Sanskrit literature have in general the title of *Saṁhitâ* i. e., compilation. Mostly encyclopædic works, as these are, they bear internal evidence of the collaboration and cumulative experience of many minds.

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Individualistic ideals and ends are as a rule associated with moral, religious, and spiritual affairs in India. Yet even in this field the capacity for cooperation has been equally evident as in other spheres. Every twelve years Hindus have had a Council of Trent, so to speak, since the earliest times. These congresses of spiritual leaders, the *sanyâsins*, monks and hermits, are called *Kumbha-Melâ* after the planetary conjunction (of Kumbha) which recurs periodically. The present-day survivals of these institutions are tremendous vitalizing forces; their delegates number about 75,000, and the audience millions.

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Some of the inscriptions of the ancient Gujaratis throw an interesting sidelight on the Hindu legal sense and institutionalism. India's appreciation of corporate energism will be evident from the measures that General Uṣavadâta adopted to perpetuate the benefits from his charities.¹ This great philanthropist of the Ândhra Deccan had the terms of his endowments registered by the *nigama-sabhâ* (town-corporation) of Govardhana (Nasik). And these were then inscribed on the door of the monastery. Gifts for public purposes used thus to be looked after by public bodies.

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¹ *Early Hist. Dek.*, sec. IV.

Section 4. The Politics of Ecclesiastical Bodies (Samghas)

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As embodiments of Hindu institutional life we have to mention also the *vihâras* or monasteries of ancient and mediæval India. These were *samûhas* i. e., public bodies and were bound by definite rules and regulations as to election, quorum, voting, and business procedure. Students of European polity are aware that on various occasions in the West the church and the state have borrowed from each other the methods of internal administration. It would appear that in the Orient also common principles of organization have been followed by religious associations and secular institutions alike. The ecclesiastical bodies of Buddhist Asia should have thus to be treated as quasi-political corporations, even independently of the fact that in certain regions, e. g. in Tibet and Mongolia, as in Catholic Europe the spiritual head has claimed also temporal dominion over his flock.

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The origins of all this institutionalism are of course to be sought in the publicity work and propaganda methods of Sâkya the Buddha himself (B. C. 623—543). Sâkya’s father and brother were *râjâs* or archons i. e. presidents of the Sakiya Republic in Eastern India. It was natural, therefore, that when he fled the world and founded a *Samgha* (Order) of monks, the only constitution that he could conceive for it was that with which he had been familiar at home and in his own state. And as a matter of course he made no distinction between his own ecclesiastical order, the *Samgha*, and the contemporary republican Confederacy of the Vajjian States, when called upon to enunciate the “seven conditions of the welfare for a community”.

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Of these seven conditions three may be regarded as directly constitutional or political. “So long, O medicants”, said Sâkya, “as the brethren meet together in full and frequent assemblies, — so long as they meet together in concord and rise in concord, and carry out in concord the duties of the Order, \*\*\* so long as the brethren honor and esteem and revere and support the elders of experience and long standing, and hold it a point of duty to hearken to their words, — so long may the brethren be expected not to decline but to prosper.”¹

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¹ *Mahâ-parinibbâna-sutta*, Ch. I, 6, in Rhys Davids’ *Buddhist Suttas*, Vol. II, pp. 6—7. The subject was discussed for the first time by Jayaswal in the *Mod. Rev.* 1913.

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In this Sâkyan constitution, defining, as it did, the type as much of an ecclesiastical society as of a secular state, e. g. a clan-republic, there are emphasized, as we see, the importance of the assembly, the need of unity, and the authority of age and experience. This last feature is such as was embodied in the primitive Indo-Aryan, Teutonic and Hellenic polities or is in evidence today in the Japanese *Genro* (“elder statesmen”). These and other principles of Śâkya’s politics have all been codified in the *Chulla-vagga* and the *Mahâ-vagga*, both of which treatises may be regarded as statute-books laying down the fundamental laws and constitutions (*Vinaya*) of Asian ecclesiastical bodies.

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The following is a typical picture of the method of deliberations generally observed in the Buddhist monasteries and conferences of ancient India: “Then the venerable Mahâ Kassapa laid the resolution before the *Samgha*: ‘Let the venerable *Samgha* hear me. If the time seems meet to the *Samgha*, let the *Samgha* appoint that these five hundred *bhikkhus* (monks) take up their residence during the rainy season at Râjagaha. \*\* This is the resolution. Let the *Samgha* hear. The *Samgha* appoints accordingly. Whosoever of the venerable ones approves thereof, let him keep silence. Whosoever approves not thereof, let him speak. The *Samgha* has appointed accordingly. Therefore is it silent. Thus do I understand.’”¹

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¹ *Chulla-vagga*, XI, i, 4.

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An important feature of these monastic institutions was that no business was held valid without quorum. “If an official act, O *bhikkhus*,” as we read Śâkya saying in the *Mahâvagga*,² “is performed unlawfully by an incomplete congregation, it is no real act and ought not be performed.” Along with this caution against incomplete congregations went the injunction against “unlawful acts.” In the following extract the *Mahâvagga*³ mentions some of those acts that have to be ruled out as unconstitutional: “They performed unlawful acts before an incomplete congregation; they performed unlawful acts before a complete congregation; they performed seemingly lawful acts before an incomplete congregation; they performed seemingly lawful acts before a complete congregation; a single *bhikkhu* pronounced expulsion against a single one; a single *bhikkhu* pronounced expulsion against two; a single *bhikkhu* pronounced expulsion against a number of *bhikkhus*; a single *bhikkhu* pronounced expulsion against a *Samgha*”. As no unlawful acts were to be permitted within the church or among the church members, Śâkya definitely laid down the rule: “Therefore, O *bhikkhus*, you ought to train yourself thus: Lawful acts which are performed by complete congregations—such acts we will perform.”⁴

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² IX, iii, 2.

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³ IX, ii, 1.

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⁴ *Mahâ-vagga*, IX, ii, 4.

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A breach of this ruling appears to have been committed by the monks at Vesali in 443 B. C., about a century after the death of Sâkya. They ordained, for instance, that it is permitted to a *Samgha* which is not sufficiently numerous to accomplish an ecclesiastical act by saying 'we will make the other *bhikkhus* consent when they come.' This ruling called *anumati-kappa* was challenged as illegal by the *bhikkhus* of other centres, and the case was submitted to a jury for trial. The jury decided against it.¹

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¹ Poussin's "Buddhist Councils" in the *Ind. Ant.*, 1908, p. 89.

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In order to ascertain the opinions of the members in regard to the topics discussed the ecclesiastical organizations made use of coloured *salâkâs* (or pins) of wood. These were the voting tickets. A *salâkâ-gâhaka* ("taker" or collector of pins) or teller was appointed by the association to explain the significance of the colours to the voters and then take the votes. In the *Chulla-vagga*² we find Sâkya describing the ballot and other kinds of voting. "I enjoin upon you, *bhikkhus*", says he, "three ways of taking votes, ** the secret method, the whispering method, and the open method." The secret method of taking votes is then described. "The *bhikkhu* who is the teller of the votes is to take the voting tickets of different colors and as each *bhikkhu* comes up to him he is to say to him thus, 'This is the ticket for the man of such an opinion, this the ticket for the man of such an opinion. Take which ever you like'. When he has chosen (he is to add), 'Do not show it to anybody." The *Chulla-vagga* enumerates also ten cases of "invalid" voting.³

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² IV, xiv, 26.

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³ IV, x.

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As conflict of opinions is inevitable in democratic deliberations, the rule of the majority was accepted by the *Samgha* as the regular procedure. "By that *bhikkhu*, the taker of the voting tickets", we read in the *Chulla-vagga*,⁴ "are the votes to be collected. And according as the larger number of the *bhikkhus* shall speak, so shall the case be decided".

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⁴ IV, xiv, 24. Re the principle of majority *vide infra*, p. 82.

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All this points to the highly developed institutional sense and corporate consciousness among Hindus. And these principles of *samûha* (or public associations and corporations) were not the patents of Buddhist, Jaina or any other religious bodies but were held in solution in the general socio-economic and civic life of ancient and mediæval India. These quasi-political institutions were only drawing upon and contributing to the same stream of national experience as did the economic *śreṇîs* (gilds) and the political *gaṇas* (republics) or constitutional *sabhâs* and *samitis* (assemblies).¹

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¹ For analogies and interactions between civil and religious societies in the West see Guizot's *History of Civilization in Europe*, Lectures V, VI, XII. Vide Möller's *History of the Christian Church*, pp. 235—242, 328, 337.

Section 5. Śreṇîs (Gilds) of Peasants, Artisans and Merchants

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It is well known that the "chartered liberties" enjoyed by the mediæval towns, e. g., those of the Hanseatic League, have been great formative forces in the evolution of modern states in Europe. An analysis of the municipal privileges, the *liber burgus* as they were called, brings us invariably down to the basic economic factors, viz. the gild merchant and the craft organization. Probably these units were not identical with the boroughs. Nor do they seem to have exclusively represented the vital principle of borough life. But there are no grounds for doubting that these industrial and commercial nuclei were some of the chief "characteristic elements of the municipal constitution".² It was these economic fraternities that had the lion's share in the government of the greatest cities like London, Paris, Cologne, Ghent and Florence.³

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² Gross' *Gild Merchant*, Vol. I, pp. 92, 105; Article on "Gilds" in Palgrave's *Dictionary of Political Economy*, Sidgwick's *Development of European Polity*, 238, 251.

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³ Unwin's *Gilds and Companies of London*, p. 61.

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The Orient was not poor in such economic centres of civic vitality in ancient and mediæval times. Students of commercial history are generally familiar with Chinese gilds.⁴ But it is not so well known that in India as in China almost every economic function from agriculture to money-lending and banking was organized into a gild.

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⁴ Macgowan's article on "Chinese Guilds, or Chambers of Commerce and Trades Unions" in the *Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society*, 1886, New Series, Vol. XXI, pp. 133—192.

1. Archaeological Data

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Epigraphic evidences in regard to the gild of peasants are practically *nil* for the time being. Cultivators' unions have only to be inferred from the general laws on the subject of "companies". Gautama⁵ (c 550 B. C.), Manu¹ (*c* 150 A. C.), Brihaspati² (*c* 650), Śukra,³ all writers mention the association of agriculturists in their schedule of *śreṇîs*. The association of shepherds, however, is not unknown in the inscriptions. In the eleventh century, under Râjendra Chola, the shepherds of a village in Southern India agreed to become security for one Eran Sattan, a fellow-shepherd “who had received 90 ewes of this temple in order to supply *ghî* (clarified butter) for burning one perpetual lamp”. If he died, absconded, or got into prison, fetters, or chains, the fraternity bound themselves to discharge his duties.⁴ The responsibility was thus considered to be a joint one by the members.

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⁵ XI, 21.

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¹ VIII, 40.

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² I, Constitution of a Court of Justice, 26.

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³ IV, v, lines 35—36.

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⁴ Hultzsch’s *South Indian Inscriptions*, Vol. II, Pt. III, cited in Coomaraswamy’s *Indian Craftsman*, p. 17.

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In regard to the gild merchant more inscriptions may be drawn upon. In Madras of the twelfth century under Vikrama Chola (1118), the hero of an historical Tamil poem, there was a traders’ gild⁵ with a membership of 500. Its activities and interests were coextensive with the South Indian Empire. In Gupta India during the fourth and fifth centuries bankers (*śreṣṭhins*), traders (*sârtthavâhas*) and merchants (*kulikas*) used to close their business correspondence with clay seals. The *nigama* or corporation of these commercial interests, with headquarters probably at Pâtali-putra, was “something like a modern chamber of commerce”.⁶ Such bodies working, as they did, in concert (*sambhûya*) were notorious in the fourth century B. C. owing to their attempts to “corner” the market. The problem of “profiteering” had to be tackled by the Maurya Empire especially because the union of merchants tried to raise prices so high as to yield a cent per cent profit.⁷

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⁵ *Government Epigraphist’s Report*, 1916, p. 121, cited in Majumdar p. 35.

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⁶ *Ann. Rep. of the Arch. Sur.*, 1903—04, p. 104.

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⁷ *Artha*, p. 403.

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The gild merchant must have been in existence in the sixth century B. C. as Gautama’s *Dharma-Sûtra* mentions it as one of the law-“making” or law-“declaring” bodies.⁸ Still earlier, as the *Valahassa*, *Chullaka setthi*, *Supparaka* and other *Jâtakas*⁹ or Buddhist “Birth Stories” narrate, maritime and land commerce used to be undertaken on the joint stock principle by companies of “five hundred trading folk”, “seven hundred merchants", etc. India's experience in commercial unions is therefore at least as old as China's.¹

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⁸ *loc. cit.*

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⁹ Majumdar, pp. 32—33; Mookerji’s *Local*, pp. 45—47, 76, 77.

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¹ Werner's *Chinese Sociology*, Table II; see the Vedic references to gilds in Mookerji's *Local*, p. 41—43.

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The story of Hindu craft gilds may be told with more details and greater confidence. Unions of industrial experts or workingmen's gilds were conspicuous institutions of the Gupta Empire. In 465, under Skandagupta, a gild of oil-men² at the city of Indra-pura presided over by Jîvanta was entrusted with an endowment out of the interest of which a temple lamp was to be maintained. The terms of the deed stipulated that the removal of the corporation from its present headquarters would not invalidate its jurisdiction over the property. Nullification of the trust might ensue only from the dissolution of the gild (or secession of some of its members). In Kumâra-gupta's time (413—455) a gild of silk weavers³ was formed at the city of Daśa-pura. They had migrated from Central Gujarat, but part of their comrades took up other pursuits, e. g. archery and fighting, astronomical studies, and asceticism, at their new place of domicile. Incidentally it appears that the change of hereditary or caste occupations was not rare in Gupta India.

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² *Gup. Insc.*, p. 71; for the Gwalior gilds of the tenth Century *vide* p. 63.

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³ *Ibid*, p. 80.

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Among Gujaratis of the early Christian era under Ândhra Emperors, there were gilds of weavers, druggists (*gândhikas*), corn-dealers (*dhânyaka-śreṇîs*), and oil-manufacturers.⁴ Like the gilds of the Gupta Empire the Ândhra gilds also discharged the functions of banks. Moneys and real estates were received by them in perpetuity as a deposit or trust fund.⁵ For the use of this property they paid to the beneficiary named in the grants interest varying from 9 to 12 per cent. In 120 A. C. two gilds of weavers⁶ at Govardhana (Nasik) were entrusted by General Uṣavadâta with 2,000 and 1,000 kârṣâpaṇas. In the third century several other gilds of the same city,⁷ viz. those of potters, *odayântrikas* (workers fabricating hydraulic engines or water-clocks), and oil-millers, became trustees of a permanent endowment to provide medicines for the monks of a *Samgha*. The planting of wayside trees was one of the objects for which a gild was similarly endowed with the income of two fields.¹

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⁴ R. G. Bhandarkar's *Early Hist.*, secs. IV and VII.

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⁵ "Nasik Inscriptions" in the *Arch. Sur.*, Vol. IV, p. 102 (cited in Hopkins' *India Old and New*, p. 175).

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⁶ *Ep. Ind.*, 1905—06, pp. 82, 83.

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⁷ *Ibid*, p. 88.

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¹ See details of the five inscriptions in Majumdar, pp. 8—10. *Vide* the south Indian inscriptions in Mookerji's *Local*, pp. 89—99.

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Like the gild merchant the craft gild also must have been prominent in Maurya times. Kautilya's scheme of fleecing the "gold-lords" for the public treasury has reference most probably to the gild of goldsmiths.² His *Artha-śâstra* suggests, besides, that certain wards of the city should be set apart for the corporations of artisans.³ And one of the functions of the Imperial superintendent of accounts was to record all about the customs, professions and transactions of the associations, whether of traders or workmen, rural or urban.⁴

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² p. 305. A "house of the gild" belonging to the Maurya period is described by Marshall in his article on "Excavations at Bhita" in the *Arch. Sur. Ann. Rep.* 1911—12, pp. 30, 31.

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³ p. 61.

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⁴ p. 69.

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Kautilya's idea about the establishment of gilds in the different wards of a city was but a reflex of the actual civic life of his own and previous times. For in the *Sîlavanaga* and other *Jâtakas*⁵ streets (*vîthis*) are sometimes named from a particular class of artisans living in them. Even an entire village of 1,000 families was often monopolized by a single industry, e. g. smithery or timber-work.

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⁵ Fick's *Soziale Gliederung*, 179—181; Mookerji's *Local*, 74.

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Gilds were then prominent institutions among Hindus as early as the sixth and seventh centuries B. C.; and epigraphy traces them down to the Chola Empire. The Buddhist story books open up to us an economic India in which the various orders of manual and skilled workers were organized on the corporate basis. There were gilds of sailors, muslin-weavers, leather-workers, painters, goldsmiths, workers in war-implements, stone-carvers, and so forth.⁶ In addition to the conventional "eighteen gilds" there must be mentioned also the unions or companies of traders and commercial men. For all subsequent periods since then, therefore, the law books could not but devote special attention to the gilds as economic institutions of the land. Gautama's *Dharma-sûtra*⁷ was composed or compiled in the *milieu* of gilds of peasants, herdsmen, traders, moneylenders, and artisans. Gilds held a high place in the Kautilyan theory of finance as important sources of public income.⁸ Authors of the third century A. C. e. g. those responsible for the compilation of Viṣṇu's law-book¹ were living in an age when the gilds of metal workers, especially goldsmiths and silversmiths, were well in evidence in social life. Not only Manu² (*c* 150) and Yâjnavalkya³ (*c* 350) but all jurists down to Nârada⁴ (*c* 500) and Brihaspati⁵ (*c* 650) had consequently to reckon gilds among the subjects of "private law". These public bodies were expressly mentioned in connection with crimes and punishments to which all individuals were liable according to the laws of the state. The violation (*vyatikrama*) of *sambids* (gild compacts or agreements) was accordingly important enough to demand special treatment along with the general law of contract.

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⁶ Majumdar, 4; cf. also *Râmâyaṇa Ayodhyâ-kâṇda*, Ch. XIX.

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⁷ *Loc. cit.*

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⁸ p. 66.

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¹ Hopkins' *India*, p. 170.

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² VIII, 5, 219.

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³ II, 15, 187, 192.

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⁴ X, 5; *Vide* Gibelin's *Etudes sur le droit civil des Hindous*, Vol. I, pp. 299—310 (*Des Sociétés*).

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⁵ XVII, 19. Some of the gilds of Ceylon in later times are described in Coomaraswamy's *Mediaeval*, pp. 55—56.

2. Samûhas as "Group-Persons"

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But not all unions, companies or associations are "corporations". How far, therefore, it may be asked, were these *śreṇîs* (often identified with *gaṇas* and *pûgas*) of the Indian socio-economic system real gilds? To what extent did these *samûha* organizations come to be conceived and recognized by Hindus themselves as "artificial civic bodies", i. e. "aggregate individuals" with "natural corporate existence"? The book of Brihaspati (Ch. XVII) furnishes an answer to these queries. The juridical concept of a corporate person or one-in-the-many as pertaining to *śreṇîs* is quite manifest in the particulars he lays down regarding the constitution and rights and duties of *samûhas*. The older Yâjna-valkya and his mediæval commentators also leave no doubt on the point.

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Gilds were governed by boards of two, three, or five persons.⁶ They conducted their business in a *sabhâ*, i. e. soviet or public assembly. As corporate bodies they could make *samaya*⁷ or compact with private individuals as well as among themselves, and the state had to see to it that gild compacts were enforced like all other compacts in the land.

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⁶ Brihaspati, XVII, 10.

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⁷ Nârada, X, 1—2; Brihaspati, VIII, 9; XVII, 5.

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The "power of attorney" could be conferred by them on some of their members, and these agents represented the associations in law courts or other public offices. Accordingly the funds donated by the government to a single member had to be deposited with the joint stock of the *samûha*.¹ In Yâjnavalkya's code anything acquired by a member of the gild while on gild business was to become common property. Eleven times the value of the acquisition was the penalty for wilful violation of this ruling.² According to Brihaspati any member who injured the joint stock might be punished with deportation.³

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¹ Brihaspati, XVII, 22, 24.

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² II, 180.

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³ XVII, 15.

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The agreement entered into by a gild was binding on each and all of the members. Anybody failing to perform the duties implied thereby was liable to be banished and have his property confiscated.⁴ All expenditures were treated as common charges.⁵ Responsibility for loans contracted by a member on behalf of the association was also common. Lastly, *śreṇîs* had the "right of joint action" in relation to the state, as we have noticed in the agreement of the south Indian shepherds,⁶ one of the privileges for which the European craft used to fight.

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⁴ *Ibid*, XVII, 13.

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⁵ *Ibid*, XVII, 24.

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⁶ Supra, p. 41.

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According to Kâtyâyana, an authority later than Brihaspati, cited in Mitra Miśra's *Vîra-mitrodaya*⁷ and Chaṇḍeśvara's *Vivâda-ratnâkara*,⁸ two commentaries on Yâjnavalkya and on other jurists new members were entitled to share equally with the old the properties of the established gild. Debts of the *samûha* were likewise to be shared by them as a matter of course. Nay, the spiritual merit, as says Mitra Miśra, accruing from charities and religious services that the gild may have undertaken in the past was believed to be beneficial to persons who were elected to membership long after the deeds had been performed. The usual mode of cooption was *sarva-sammati* i. e. unanimous approval.

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⁷ p. 432. For schools of Hindu Law see G. C. Sarkar, pp. 28—29, Jolly's *Recht*, 31—41, and Mitra, 61—69.

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⁸ p. 188 (chapter on *Sambid-vyatikrama*).

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Nothing illustrates better the "legal fiction" of corporations as "immortal persons" than these latter-day ideas in regard to *gaṇa*, *śreṇî*, and *varga*. It is clear, therefore, that Hindu *samûhas*, whether of capitalists, working men or peasants, and trade unions or commercial fraternities had the distinctive characteristics of a homogeneous "community" with common rights and common obligations, — the "real group-persons" of Gierke and Figgis.⁹

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⁹ cf. Barker's article on the "Discredited State" in the *Political Quarterly*, Feb. 1915, p. 111. The importance of this question has not been grasped by previous authors although some of them have cited the relevant passages in other contexts.

3. The Politics of Economic Associations

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We shall now analyze the constitutional, political or civic immunities and liberties enjoyed by the gilds of ancient and mediæval India. This will throw light on the amount of decentralization achieved in Hindu polity. No governmental documents are available however. The only authorities are literary.

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In the first place, *śreṇîs* were monopolistic organizations anxious to maintain in tact their economic autonomy. We learn from Nârada that the gilds were indeed open to more than one socio-religious group or caste.¹ But generally speaking, their regulations were as exclusive in spirit as the ordinances, say, of the English hatters’ craft in the fourteenth century.² They sought to regulate the number of apprentices and also the hours of labor.³ On festive occasions, in street processions, and at social gatherings each *śreṇî* was represented by its own banners and buntings bearing on them the implements and emblems of the respective crafts.

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¹ Hopkins’ *India*, p. 174; Mookerji's *Local*, pp. 58, 61, 62.

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² Unwin, p. 89; Palgrave’s *Dictionary* (“Craft gilds”).

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³ Birdwood’s *Industrial Arts of India*, pp. 137—140; Hopkins’ *India*, pp. 171—174, 193—196. See Nârada’s rules of apprenticeship in Mookerji’s *Local*, 51, 52.

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In the second place, the *jetthaka* (alderman) and *setthi*, i. e., the heads of corporations were treated by kings as representatives of the people functionally divided as artisans, merchants and peasants. In pre-Maurya times, i. e. previous to the third quarter of the fourth century B. C., it was through their gilds that the people were summoned by the king on important occasions.⁴ *Śreṇîs* appear thus to have played an important part in the public finance. The taxes to be paid by traders and other inhabitants of the town were agreed upon by the ruler “in consultation with the heads of the gilds”.⁵

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⁴ Rhys Davids’ *Buddhist India*, p. 97.

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⁵ Hopkins’ *India*, p. 176.

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Necessarily, therefore, in the third place, *mukhyas* i. e. heads, presidents or representatives of the corporations constituted, like councillors of the king, an important “estate” of the realm. At the coronation of kings, e. g. in the *Râmâyaṇa*, gilds had the right to the sprinkling or anointing ritual. Sometimes gild members occupied high state offices, as we know from the *Jâtakas*.⁶ Socially, on the whole, they were “peers” of the king. As poets of the *Mahâbhârata*⁷ have declared the royal ideal of manliness, kings were ashamed to return to their homeland if they were defeated in battles. For, “what would the elders of the gilds say to me”, argued the kings, “and what should I speak to them in reply?” The moral control exercised by gilds on state policies may be presumed to have been of a high order. Undisputed, therefore, was their influence on public opinion.

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