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The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s1.t1: (a) Samgha ("group-person")

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s1.t1

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(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.

Cites (2)