Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c6.s2.16

c6.s2.16

In the years 1914-16 a great controversy raged about the term *gaṇa*, which J. F. Fleet translated merely as "tribe."¹¹ F. W. Thomas, supporting Jayaswal, interpreted it as meaning a "republican or oligarchic constitution."¹² He explained the *gaṇa* as "a sort of council representing the powerful families in the state."¹ Since then most scholars have accepted the fact that in the post-Vedic period the term denoted, beyond all doubt, a republican form of government. However, according to Professor R. C. Majumdar, the *gaṇas* "denoted, in general, merely corporations of particular kinds."² Majumdar is correct to a large extent, but his definition is vague and one does not get from it a clear idea as to precisely what the *gaṇa* meant in early constitutional terminology.