The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c9.s3.2

c9.s3.2

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.