The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s1.t1.9

c9.s1.t1.9

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*".