Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c7.9

c7.9

However, a careful study of the Vedic texts not only attests to the existence of republican elements in the Vedic polity, but also points to the significant fact, hitherto unnoticed, that these institutions, existing in some case individually and in others jointly, indicated special forms of non-monarchical or aristocratic governments. We shall attempt to show that some of the tribes or "political communities" ⁷ had a king who was appointed, rather than elected, for life by the elders of the tribe or political community, while others were governed by a *sabhā* or an aristocratic oligarchy. The sources further inform us that some tribes had both a *sabhā* or council, and a *samiti* or an assembly, while some appear to have had an assembly (*samiti*) and an unspecified number of kings (*rājānaḥ*). Thus, apart from the hereditary monarchy which appears to have been the most widespread form of government in the early Vedic period, and is virtually the only form recorded during the Brāhmaṇa period, we find what seem to be traces of at least four different types of aristocratic government through which a number of Vedic peoples carried out the administration of their political communities.