Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c16.8

c16.8

There is sufficient evidence to show that republicanism did not die out altogether in ancient India after the disappearance of the northeastern republics. Republican ideas, attitudes, and practices survived until long after the days of the Buddha and Mahāvīra. The classical historians refer to a number of northwestern republics during the 4th century B.C., and numerous inscriptions and coins from northwest and western India clearly show that such republics flourished, at least until the date when the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudra Gupta was engraved. It is probable that the democratic spirit of the early Vedic aristocracies of the northwest did not completely vanish under the monarchies of the Brāhmaṇic period. This spirit seems to have assumed concrete form again, as soon as the sceptre of strong monarchies wavered. Perhaps those Vedic aristocrats who were not as adventurous and freedom-loving as their northeastern counterparts and did not dare to leave their hearths and homes, but submitted to the rule of a king, later raised their heads again and set up republican states in the Panjab and Sind region. But the republics of the Buddhist period, as such, had disappeared for good, with the sole exception of the Licchavis. They reappeared after about eight hundred years and were to become one of the chief factors in establishing Candra Gupta I on the throne of Pāṭaliputra. But then, in all probability they had adopted a monarchical constitution.