Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v2.c4.s9.232

v2.c4.s9.232

According to Ludwig,⁷ the Sabhā was an assembly not of all the people, but of the Brahmins and Maghavans (‘rich patrons’). This view can be supported by the expressions sabhya, ‘worthy of the assembly,’ applied to a Brahmin,⁸ rayiḥ sabhāvān, ‘wealth fitting for the assembly,’⁹ and so on. But Bloomfield¹⁰ plausibly sees in these passages a domestic use of Sabhā, which is recognized by the St. Petersburg Dictionary in several passages¹¹ as relating to a house, not to the assembly at all. Zimmer¹² is satisfied that the Sabhā was the meeting-place of the village council, presided over by the Grāmaṇī. But of this there is no trace whatever. Hillebrandt¹³ seems right in maintaining that the Sabhā and the Samiti cannot be distinguished, and that the reference to well-born (su-jāta)¹⁴ men being there in session is to the Āryan as opposed to the Dāsa or Śūdra, not to one class of Āryan as opposed to the other. Hillebrandt also sees in Agni ‘of the hall’ (sabhya) a trace of the fire used in sacrifice on behalf of the assembly when it met.¹⁵