Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c7.502

c7.502

In recent years Professor R. S. Sharma has strongly pleaded the case for the *vidatha*, following the pattern of Jayaswal.² In his opinion also, “the *vidatha* was the earliest folk-assembly of the Indo-Āryans attended both by men and women, performing all kinds of functions, economic, military, religious and social.”³ This view, like the earlier ones, needs careful scrutiny, and we shall first examine his arguments one by one.