Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s12.509

v1.c3.s12.509

The relation of the villagers is difficult to ascertain with precision. In several passages¹⁰ the word occurs with what appears to be the derivative sense of ‘body of men.’ This sense presumably started from the use of the word to denote the ‘village folk,’ as when Śaryāta Mānava is said in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa¹¹ to have wandered about with his ‘village’ (*grāmeṇa*); but, as Zimmer¹² observes, this restricted sense nowhere appears clearly in the Rigveda,¹³ where indeed the ‘folk’ (*jana*)¹⁴ of the Bharatas is in one passage¹⁵ called the ‘horde seeking cows’ (*gavyaṃ grāmaṃ*). Zimmer¹⁶ tends to regard the Grāma as a clan, and as standing midway between the family and the tribe (Viś). The Grāma may, however, perhaps be regarded more correctly¹⁷ as an aggregate of several families, not necessarily forming a clan, but only part of a clan (Viś), as is often the case at the present day.¹⁸