Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c11.1

c11.1

If it were not for the birth of Mahāvīra amongst the Nāya-Khattiyas we should probably never have heard of this tribe. It is mainly in connection with the last Tīrthaṅkara of the Jainas and the doctrine of severe asceticism which he expounded that we find a few references to the Nāyas and scanty allusions to their political institutions in the sacred books of the Jainas, the Pāli Canon, Commentaries of these texts and some later epigraphic records. No study of their political institutions has yet been undertaken,¹ but the scattered data collected from these sources do present a fairly cohesive whole, though on some points vaguries arise due to the dearth of material.