Democracy
in Ancient India
by Steve Muhlberger, Associate
Professor of History, Nipissing University.
http://www.unipissing.ca/department/history/histdem/indiadem.htm
Returning to it now, in 1998, I find I still believe
in my interpretation of the ancient evidence for Indian democracy, and in its
relevance to how we understand the world history of democracy. Rather than let
it languish further, I am releasing it electronically, for both general and
specialist readers. I
will be glad to hear your comments. For the reader who wants to look
into the question independently, I have posted a bibliography,
and of course there are always the footnotes. I
should make clear that though this article bears my name alone, I was pointed in
the right direction by an unpublished essay on democracy by Phil Paine. I also
wish to note that I was aided in my research by the collection of Asian
literature at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario. My
philosopher-colleague at Nipissing University, Dr. Wayne Borody, made some
suggestions, but neither he nor anyone else is responsibile for any errors or
misinterpretations.
Historians
who are interested in democracy often insist it must be understood in context of
a unique western tradition of political development beginning with the Greeks.
The spread of democratic ideals and practice to other cultures, or their failure
to spread, have many times been explained on the assumption that democracy or
personal liberty are ideals foreign to the non-Western world -- an assumption at
least as old as Herodotus.1
But events since the late 1980s have shown that people both in
"Western" and "non-Western" countries have a lively interest
in democracy as something relevant to their own situation. The old assumption
deserves to be re-examined.
In fact, the supposed differences between "Western" and
"non-Western" cultures are in this case, as in so many others, more a
matter of ideological faith than of cool, impartial judgment. If we are talking
about the history of humanity as a whole, democracy is equally new or equally
old everywhere. Fair and effective elections, under adult suffrage and in
conditions that allow the free discussion of ideas, are a phenomenon of this
century. The history of democracy, properly so called, is just beginning.
The
"prehistory" of democracy, however, is scarcely restricted to Europe
and Europeanized America and Australasia. A search of world history finds much
worth studying. There are no perfect democracies waiting to be discovered, but
there is something else: a long history of "government by discussion,"
in which groups of people having common interests make decisions that affect
their lives through debate, consultation, and voting. The vast majority of such
groups, it may be objected, are more properly called oligarchies than
democracies. But every democracy has been created by widening what was
originally a very narrow franchise. The history of government by discussion,
which may be called republicanism for brevity's sake, has a claim to the
interest of anyone who takes democracy seriously.2
This article
will examine one important case of government by discussion -- the republics of
Ancient India. Although they are familiar to Indologists, these republics are
hardly known to other historians. They deserve, however, a substantial place in
world historiography. The experience of Ancient India with republicanism, if
better known, would by itself make democracy seem less of a freakish
development, and help dispel the common idea that the very concept of democracy
is specifically "Western."
The present
article has two goals. First, it will summarize the history of the ancient
Indian republics as it is currently known. This survey is restricted to North
India and the period before about 400 A.D., when sovereign republics seem to
have become extinct.
Second, the
article will examine the historiographical evaluations of the Indian republican
experience, and suggest that most of them have placed it in too narrow a
context. Ancient Indian democratic experiments, it will be argued, are more
important than they are usually granted to be. It is well known that the sources
of ancient Indian history present considerable difficulties. All the indigenous
ancient literature from the subcontinent has been preserved as part of a
religious tradition, Brahmanical, Buddhist or Jaina. When the subject is
political theory and its implementation, the preselected nature of sources is a
distinct handicap to the researcher. The largest and most influential Indian
literary tradition, the Brahmanical, is distinctly hostile to anything
resembling democracy.
Brahmanical
literature gives kingship a central place in political life, and seldom hints
that anything else is possible. For moral philosophers and legislators such as
Manu (reputed author of the Manu-Smrti between 200 B.C.-A.D. 200), the king was
a key figure in a social order based on caste (varna ). Caste divided society
into functional classes: the Brahmans had magical powers and priestly duties,
the ksatriyas were the rulers and warriors, the vaisyas cultivators, and the
sudras the lowest part of society, subservient to the other three. Moral law or
dharma depended on the observance of these divisions, and the king was the
guarantor of dharma , and in particular the privileges of the Brahmans. 3
Another tradition is best exemplified by the Arthasastra of Kautilya (c. 300
B.C.), which alloted the king a more independent role but likewise emphasized
his responsibility for peace, justice and stability.4
Both Kautilya's
work and the Manu-Smrti are considered classic expressions of ancient Indian
political and social theory. A reader of these or other Brahmanical treatises
finds it very easy to visualize ancient Indian society as one where
"monarchy was the normal form of the state." 5
Until the end
of the last century, the only indication that this might not always have been
the case came from Greek and Roman accounts of India, mostly histories of India
during and just after Alexander the Great's invasion of India in 327-324 B.C.
These works spoke of numerous cities and even larger areas being governed as
oligarchies and democracies, but they were not always believed by scholars.6
Yet research into the Buddhist Pali Canon during the nineteenth century
confirmed this picture of widespread republicanism. The Pali Canon is the
earliest version of the Buddhist scriptures, and reached its final form between
400-300 B.C.7
It contains the story of Buddha's life and teaching and his rules for monastic
communities. The rules and teachings are presented in the form of anecdotes,
explaining the circumstances that called forth the Buddha's authoritative
pronouncement. Thus the Pali Canon provides us with many details of life in
ancient India, and specifically of the sixth century (the Buddha's lifetime) in
the northeast. In 1903, T.W. Rhys Davids, the leading Pali scholar, pointed out
in his book Buddhist India 8
that the Canon (and the Jatakas, a series of Buddhist legends set in the same
period but composed much later) depicted a country in which there were many
clans, dominating extensive and populous territories, who made their public
decisions in assemblies, moots, or parliaments.
Rhys Davids'
observation was not made in a vacuum. Throughout the nineteenth century,
students of local government in India (many of them British bureaucrats) had
been fascinated by popular elements in village life.9
The analysis of village government was part of a continuous debate on the goals
and methods of imperial policy, and the future of India as a self-governing
country. Rhys-Davids' book made the ancient institutions of India relevant to
this debate. His reconstruction of a republican past for India was taken up by
nationalistic Indian scholars of the 1910s.10
Later generations of Indian scholars have been somewhat embarrassed by the
enthusiasm of their elders for early republics and have sought to treat the
republics in a more balanced and dispassionate manner.11
Nevertheless, their work, like that of the pioneering nationalists, has been
extremely productive. Not only the classical sources and the Pali Canon, but
also Buddhist works in Sanskrit, Panini's Sanskrit grammar (the Astadhyayi ),
the Mahabharata, the Jaina Canon, and even Kautilya's Arthasastra have been
combed for evidence and insights. Coins and inscriptions have documented the
existence of republics and the workings of popular assemblies.
The work of
twentieth century scholars has made possible a much different view of ancient
political life in India. It has shown us a landscape with kings a-plenty, a
culture where the terminology of rule is in the majority of sources relentlessly
monarchical, but where, at the same time, the realities of politics are so
complex that simply to call them "monarchical" is a grave distortion.
Indeed, in ancient India, monarchical thinking was constantly battling with
another vision, of self-rule by members of a guild, a village, or an extended
kin-group, in other words, any group of equals with a common set of interests.
This vision of cooperative self-government often produced republicanism and even
democracy comparable to classical Greek democracy.
Though evidence
for non-monarchical government goes back to the Vedas, 12
republican polities were most common and vigorous in the Buddhist period, 600
B.C.-A.D. 200. At this time, India was in the throes of urbanization. The Pali
Canon gives a picturesque description of the city of Vesali in the fifth century
B.C. as possessing 7707 storied buildings, 7707 pinnacled buildings, 7707 parks
and lotus ponds, and a multitude of people, including the famous courtesan
Ambapali, whose beauty and artistic achievements contributed mightily to the
city's prosperity and reputation. The cities of Kapilavatthu and Kusavati were
likewise full of traffic and noise.13
Moving between these cities were great trading caravans of 500 or 1000 carts --
figures that convey no precise measurement, but give a true feeling of scale:
caravans that stopped for more than four months in a single place, as they often
did because of the rainy season, were described as villages.14
Religion, too, was taking to the road. The hereditary Brahman who was also a
householder, as in later Vedic tradition, saw his teachings, authority and
perquisites threatened by wandering holy men and self-appointed teachers.15
There were
warlord-kings who sought to control this fluid society, some with a measure of
success. But the literature, Pali and Sanskrit, Buddhist and Brahmanical, shows
that non-monarchical forms of government were omnipresent. There was a complex
vocabulary to describe the different types of groups that ran their own affairs.16
Some of these were obviously warrior bands; 17
others more peaceful groups with economic goals; some religious brotherhoods.
Such an organization, of whatever type, could be designated, almost
indifferently, as a gana or a sangha; and similar though less important bodies
were labeled with the terms sreni, puga, or vrata. Gana and sangha, the most
important of these terms, originally meant "multitude." By the sixth
century B.C., these words meant both a self-governing multitude, in which
decisions were made by the members working in common, and the style of
government characteristic of such groups. In the case of the strongest of such
groups, which acted as sovereign governments, the words are best translated as
"republic."
That there were
many sovereign republics in India is easily demonstrated from a number of
sources. Perhaps it is best to begin with the Greek evidence, even though it is
not the earliest, simply because the Greek writers spoke in a political language
that is familiar.
Perhaps the
most useful Greek account of India is Arrian's Anabasis of Alexander , which
describes the Macedonian conqueror's campaigns in great detail. The Anabasis,
which is derived from the eyewitness accounts of Alexander's companions, 18
portrays him as meeting "free and independent" Indian communities at
every turn. What "free and independent" meant is illustrated from the
case of Nysa, a city on the border of modern Afghanistan and Pakistan that was
ruled by a president named Aculphis and a council of 300. After surrendering to
Alexander, Aculphis used the city's supposed connection with the god Dionysus to
seek lenient terms from the king:
"The Nysaeans beseech
thee, O king out of respect for Dionysus, to allow them to remain free and
independent; for when Dionysus had subjugated the nation of the Indians...he
founded this city from the soldiers who had become unfit for military service
...From that time we inhabit Nysa, a free city, and we ourselves are
independent, conducting our government with constitutional order." 19
Nysa
was in Greek terms an oligarchy, as further discussion between Alexander and
Aculphis reveals, and a single-city state. There were other Indian states that
were both larger in area and wider in franchise. It is clear from Arrian that
the Mallian republic consisted of a number of cities.20
Q. Curtius Rufus and Diodorus Siculus in their histories of Alexander mention a
people called the Sabarcae or Sambastai among whom "the form of government
was democratic and not regal." 21
The Sabarcae/Sambastai, like the Mallians, had a large state. Their army
consisted of 60,000 foot, 6000 cavalry, and 500 chariots.22
Thus Indian republics of the late fourth century could be much larger than the
contemporaneous Greek polis . And it seems that in the northwestern part of
India, republicanism was the norm. Alexander's historians mention a large number
of republics, some named, some not, but only a handful of kings.23
The prevalence of republicanism and its democratic form is explicitly stated by
Diodorus Siculus. After describing the mythical monarchs who succeeded the god
Dionysus as rulers of India, he says:
At last, however, after
many years had gone, most of the cities adopted the democratic form of
government, though some retained the kingly until the invasion of the country by
Alexander.24
What
makes this statement particularly interesting is that it seems to derive from a
first-hand description of India by a Greek traveler named Megasthenes. Around
300 B.C., about two decades after Alexander's invasion, Megasthenes served as
ambassador of the Greek king Seleucus Nicator to the Indian emperor Chandragupta
Maurya, and in the course of his duties crossed northern India to the eastern
city of Patna, where he lived for a while.25
If this statement is drawn from Megasthenes, then the picture of a northwestern
India dominated by republics must be extended to the entire northern half of the
subcontinent.26
If we turn to
the Indian sources, we find that there is nothing far-fetched about this idea.
The most useful sources for mapping north India are three: The Pali Canon, which
shows us northeastern India between the Himalayas and the Ganges in the sixth
and fifth centuries B.C.; the grammar of Panini, which discusses all of North
India, with a focus on the northwest, during the fifth century; and Kautilya's
Arthasastra, which is a product of the fourth century, roughly contemporaneous
with Megasthenes. All three sources enable us to identify numerous sanghas and
ganas, some very minor, others large and powerful.27
What were these
republican polities like? According to Panini, all the states and regions (janapadas
) of northern India during his time were based on the settlement or conquest of
a given area by an identifiable warrior people who still dominated the political
life of that area. Some of these peoples (in Panini's terms janapadins ) were
subject to a king, who was at least in theory of their own blood and was perhaps
dependent on their special support.28
Elsewhere, the janapadins ran their affairs in a republican manner. Thus in both
kinds of state, the government was dominated by people classified as ksatriyas,
or, as later ages would put it, members of the warrior caste.
But in many
states, perhaps most, political participation was restricted to a subset of all
the ksatriyas . One needed to be not just a warrior, but a member of a specific
royal clan, the rajanya.29
Evidence from a number of sources shows that the enfranchised members of many
republics, including the Buddha's own Sakyas and the Licchavis with whom he was
very familiar, considered themselves to be of royal descent, even brother-kings.
The term raja, which in a monarchy certainly meant king, in a state with gana or
sangha constitution could designate someone who held a share in sovereignty. In
such places, it seems likely that political power was restricted to the heads of
a restricted number of "royal families" (rajakulas) among the ruling
clans. The heads of these families were consecrated as kings, and thereafter
took part in deliberations of state.
Our Indian
republics are beginning to sound extremely undemocratic by our modern standards,
with real power concentrated in the hands of a few patriarchs representing the
leading lineages of one privileged section of the warrior caste. A reader who
has formed this impression is not entirely mistaken. No doubt the rulers of most
republics thought of their gana as a closed club -- as did the citizens of
Athens, who also defined themselves as a hereditarily privileged group. But, as
in ancient Athens, there are other factors which modify the picture, and make it
an interesting one for students of democracy.
First, the
closed nature of the ruling class is easy to exaggerate. Republics where only
descendants of certain families held power were common; but there was another
type in which power was shared by all ksatriya families.31 This may not sound
like much of a difference, since the restriction to the warrior caste seems to
remain. But this is an anachronistic view of the social conditions of the time.
The varnas of pre-Christian-era India were not the castes of later periods, with
their prohibitions on intermarriage and commensality with other groups.32
Rather, they were the constructs of theorists, much like the division of three
orders (priests, warriors and workers) beloved by European writers of the Early
Middle Ages.33
Such a classification was useful for debating purposes, but was not a fact of
daily existence. Those republics that threw open the political process to all
ksatriyas were not extending the franchise from one clearly defined group to
another, albeit a larger one, but to all those who could claim, and justify the
claim, to be capable of ruling and fighting.
Other evidence
suggests that in some states the enfranchised group was even wider. Such a
development is hinted at in Kautilya: according to him, there were two kinds of
janapadas, ayudhiya-praya, those made up mostly of soldiers, and sreni-praya ,
those comprising guilds of craftsmen, traders, and agriculturalists.34
The first were political entities where military tradition alone defined those
worthy of power, while the second would seem to be communities where wealth
derived from peaceful economic activity gave some access to the political
process. This interpretation is supported by the fact that sreni or guilds based
on an economic interest were often both part of the armed force of a state and
recognized as having jurisdiction over their own members.35
In the Indian republics, as in the Greek poleis or the European cities of the
High Middle Ages, economic expansion enabled new groups to take up arms and
eventually demand a share in sovereignty36
If it was not granted, one could always form one's own mini-state. Panini's
picture of stable, long-established janapadas is certainly the illusion of a
systematizing grammarian. As Panini's most thorough modern student has put it,
there was "a craze for constituting new republics" which "had
reached its climax in the Vahika country and north-west India where clans
constituting of as many as one hundred families only organized themselves as
Ganas."37
Furthermore, power in some republics was vested in a large number of
individuals. In a well-known Jataka tale we are told that in the Licchavi
capital of Vesali, there were 7707 kings (rajas), 7707 viceroys, 7707 generals,
and 7707 treasurers.38
These figures, since they come from about half a millenium after the period they
describe, have little evidentiary value, despite the ingenious efforts of
scholars to find a core of hard fact. The tale does not give us the number of
Licchavi ruling families (rajakulas), the size of the Licchavi assembly, or any
real clues as to the population of Vesali.39
Yet the Jataka does retain the memory of an undisputed feature of Indian
republicanism: the rulers were many.40
The same memory can be found in other sources, especially in those critical of
republicanism. The Lalitavistara, in an obvious satirical jab, depicts Vesali as
being full of Licchavi rajans , each one thinking, "I am king, I am
king," and thus a place where piety, age and rank were ignored.41
The Santi Parva section of the Mahabharata shows the participation of too many
people in the affairs of state as being a great flaw in the republican polity:
The gana leaders should be
respected as the worldly affairs (of the ganas) depend to a great extent upon
them...the spy (department) and the secrecy of counsel (should be left) to the
chiefs, for it is not fit that the entire body of the gana should hear those
secret matters. The chiefs of gana should carry out together, in secret, works
leading to the prosperity of the gana , otherwise the wealth of the gana decays
and it meets with danger.42
A Jaina work again
criticizes ganas for being disorderly: the monks and nuns who frequent them will
find themselves bullied, beaten, robbed, or accused of being spies.43
The numerous
members of a sovereign gana or sangha interacted with each other as members of
an assembly. Details of the working of such assemblies can be found both in
Brahmanical and Buddhist literature. By the time of Panini (fifth century B.C.),
there was a terminology for the process of corporate decision-making. Panini
gives us the terms for vote, decisions reached by voting, and the completion of
a quorum. Another cluster of words indicates that the division of assemblies
into political parties was well known. Further, Panini and his commentators show
that sometimes a smaller select group within a sangha had special functions --
acting as an executive, or perhaps as a committees for defined purposes.44
The Pali Canon
gives a much fuller, if somewhat indirect, depiction of democratic institutions
in India, confirming and extending the picture found in Panini. This is found in
three of the earliest and most revered parts of the canon, the
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta, the Mahavagga, and the Kullavagga.45
These works, taken together, preserve the Buddha's instructions for the proper
running of the Buddhist monastic brotherhood -- the sangha -- after his death.
They are the best source for voting procedures in a corporate body in the
earliest part of the Buddhist period. They also give some insight into the
development of democratic ideology.
The rules for
conducting the Buddhist sangha were, according to the first chapter of the
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta, based in principle on those commonly found in
political sanghas or ganas. In the case of the Buddhist sangha, the key
organizational virtue was the full participation of all the monks in the ritual
and disciplinary acts of their group. To assure that this would be remembered,
detailed rules concerning the voting in monastic assemblies, their membership,
and their quorums, were set down in the Mahavagga and the Kullavagga .
Business could
only be transacted legitimately in a full assembly, by a vote of all the
members. If, for example, a candidate wanted the upasampada ordination, the
question (ñatti) was put to the sangha by a learned and competent member, and
the other members asked three times to indicate dissent. If there was none, the
sangha was taken to be in agreement with the ñatti. The decision was finalized
by the proclamation of the decision of the sangha.46
In many cases,
as in the granting of upasampada ordination, unanimity of a full assembly was
required.47
Of course, unanimity was not always possible. The Kullavagga provides other
techniques that were used in disputes especially dangerous to the unity of the
sangha, those which concerned interpretation of the monastic rule itself. If
such a dispute had degenerated into bitter and confused debate, it could be
decided by majority vote, or referred to a jury or committee specially elected
by the sangha to treat the matter at hand.48
It is here that
we see a curious combination of well-developed democratic procedure and fear of
democracy. The rules for taking votes sanctioned the disallowance by the
vote-taker of results that threatened the essential law of the sangha or its
unity.49
Yet, if the voting procedure is less than free, the idea that only a free vote
could decide contentious issues is strongly present. No decision could be made
until some semblance of agreement had been reached.50
Such manipulations of voting were introduced because Buddhist elders were very
concerned about the survival of the religious enterprise: disunity of the
membership was the great fear of all Indian republics and corporations.51
Yet the idea of a free vote could not be repudiated. The Kullavagga illustrates
a conflict within the Buddhist sangha during its earliest centuries between
democratic principles and a philosophy that was willing in the name of unity to
sacrifice them.
Since the rules
of the Buddhist sangha are by far the best known from the period we have been
discussing, it is tempting to identify them with the rules of political ganas,
particularly those of the Licchavis (or Vajjians), since the Buddha made a clear
connection between the principles applicable to the Licchavi polity and those of
his sangha.52
But from early on, scholars have recognized that the Buddhist constitution was
not an exact imitation of any other: for instance, sovereign republics had a
small, elected executive committee to manage the affairs of the gana when the
whole membership of the gana was unable to be assembled.53
But neither did the Buddha or his earliest followers invent their complex and
carefully formulated parliamentary procedures out of whole cloth. R.C.
Majumdar's conclusion, first formulated in 1918, still seems valid: the
techniques seen in the Buddhist sangha reflect a sophisticated and widespread
political culture based on the popular assembly.54
Similarly, the
value placed on full participation of members in the affairs of their sangha
must reflect the ideology of those who believed in the sangha-gana form of
government in the political sphere. The Buddha's commitment to republicanism (or
at least the ideal republican virtues) was a strong one, if we are to believe
the Maha-parinibbana-suttanta, among the oldest of Buddhist texts.55
As is common in the Buddhist scriptures, a precept is illustrated by a story.
Here Ajatasastru, the King of Maghada, wishes to destroy the Vajjian confederacy
(here = the Licchavis) 56
and sends a minister, Vassakara the Brahman, to the Buddha to ask his advice.
Will his attack be a success? Rather than answer directly, the Buddha speaks to
Ananda, his closest disciples:
"Have you heard,
Ananda, that the Vajjians hold full and frequent public assemblies?"
"Lord,
so I have heard," replied he.
"So
long, Ananda," rejoined the Blessed One, "as the Vajjians hold these
full and frequent public assemblies; so long may they be expected not to
decline, but to prosper...
In a series of rhetorical
questions to Ananda, the Buddha outlines other requirements for Vajjian
prosperity:
"So long, Ananda, as
the Vajjians meet together in concord, and rise in concord, and carry out their
undertakings in concord...so long as they enact nothing not already established,
abrogate nothing that has been already enacted, and act in accordance with the
ancient institutions of the Vajjians as established in former days...so long as
they honor and esteem and revere and support the Vajjian elders, and hold it a
point of duty to hearken to their words...so long as no women or girls belonging
to their clans are detained among them by force or abduction...so long as they
honor and esteem and revere and support the Vajjian shrines in town or country,
and allow not the proper offerings and rites, as formerly given and performed,
to fall into desuetude...so long as the rightful protection, defense, and
support shall be fully provided for the Arahats among them, so that Arahats from
a distance may enter the realm, and the Arahats therein may live at ease -- so
long may the Vajjians be expected not to decline, but to prosper."
Then
the Blessed One addressed Vassakara the Brahman, and said, "When I was once
staying, O Brahman, at Vesali at the Sarandada Temple, I taught the Vajjians
these conditions of welfare; and so long as those conditions shall continue to
exist among the Vajjians, so long as the Vajjians shall be well instructed in
those conditions, so long may we expect them not to decline, but to
prosper."
The comment of the king's
ambassador underlines the point of this advice: "So, Gotama, the Vajjians
cannot be overcome by the king of Magadha; that is, not in battle, without
diplomacy or breaking up their alliance."
The same story
tells us that once the king's envoy had departed, the Buddha and Ananda went to
meet the assembly of monks. Buddha told the monks that they too must observe
seven conditions if they were to prosper: Full and frequent assemblies, concord,
preserving and not abrogating established institutions, honoring elders, falling
"not under the influence of that craving which, springing up within them,
would give rise to renewed existence," delighting in a life of solitude,
and training "their minds that good and holy men shall come to them, and
those who have come shall dwell at ease." 57
These precepts, and others that follow in sets of seven, were the main point for
the monks who have transmitted the Maha-parinibbana-suttanta to us. We, however,
may wish to emphasize another point: the Buddha saw the virtues necessary for a
righteous and prosperous community, whether secular or monastic, as being much
the same. Foremost among those virtues was the holding of "full and
frequent assemblies." In this, the Buddha spoke not only for himself, and
not only out of his personal view of justice and virtue. He based himself on
what may be called the democratic tradition in ancient Indian politics --
democratic in that it argued for a wide rather than narrow distribution of
political rights, and government by discussion rather than by command and
submission.58
The Pali Canon
gives us our earliest, and perhaps our best, detailed look at Indian
republicanism, its workings, and its political philosophy. About no other
republics do we know as much as we do about the Buddhist sangha and the
Licchavis in the time of Buddha -- even though we do know that republics
survived and were a significant factor until perhaps the fourth century A.D., a
period of over 800 years. Scattered inscriptions, a great number of coins, and
the occasional notice in Greek sources, the Jatakas or other Indian literature
give us a few facts. But any history of Indian republicanism is necessarily a
rather schematic one.
The theme that
has most attracted the attention of scholars is the constant danger to
republicanism, and its ultimate failure. Much of what we know about the
sovereign ganas of India derives from stories of attacks upon them by various
conquerors. Yet it is remarkable that for several centuries, the conspicuous
successes of monarchs, even the greatest, had only a temporary effect on the
sovereign republics and very little effect indeed on the corporate organization
of guilds, religious bodies, and villages. The reason is, of course, that Indian
kings have seldom been as mighty as they wished to be, or wished to be
presented. Conquerors were not in a position to restructure society, to create
states as we visualize them today. Rather they were usually content to gain the
submission of their neighbors, whether they were other kings or republics.59
These defeated rivals were often left in control of their own affairs, merely
required to pay tribute and provide troops for the conquerors next war. The
great emperors of ancient India, including Chandragupta Maurya and Asoka, ran
rather precarious realms. Once the center weakened, these unraveled very
quickly, and society returned to its preceding complexity. Rival dynasties
revived, as did defeated republics.60
As Altekar
recognized, the mere existence of warlords was not fatal to the republican
tradition of politics. Far more important was the slow abandonment of republican
ideals by republicans themselves. We have seen that many republics were content
even in the earliest days with a very exclusive definition of the political
community. In some, ideas of wider participation gained currency and even
implementation. But the contrary movement is easier to document. By the third
and fourth centuries A.D., states known to be republics in earlier times were
subject to hereditary executives. Eventually such republics became monarchies.61
An evolution
away from republicanism is clearly seen in the literature of politics and
religion. If we grant that the society depicted by the Pali Canon is the
beginning of a new era, one with an economy and culture quite distinct from the
Vedic period, it immediately becomes obvious that the most democratic ideals are
the earliest. The Pali Canon, and to some extent the Jaina Canon, show us
energetic movements that rejected the hierarchialism and caste ideology seen in
the Vedas and Brahmanas in favor of more egalitarian values. Buddhism and
Jainism were scarcely exceptional: they are merely the most successful of many
contemporary religious movements, and left us records. It is clear from Panini
that egalitarianism was an important element in the fifth century B.C.: he
preserves a special term for the gana where "there was no distinction
between high and low." 62
Such
Brahmanical classics as the Mahabharata, the writings of Kautilya and the Manu-Smrti,
works that promoted hierarchy, are manifestations of a later movement (300
B.C.-200 A.D.) away from the degree of egalitarianism that had been achieved.
Kautilya, who is traditionally identified with the chief minister of the Mauryan
conqueror Chandragupta Maurya (fl. after 300 B.C.), is famous for his advice to
monarchs on the best way to tame or destroy ganas through subterfuge; perhaps a
more important part of his achievement was to formulate a political science in
which royalty was normal, even though his own text shows that ganas were very
important factors in the politics of his time.63
Similarly, the accomplishment of the Manu-Smrti was to formulate a view of
society where human equality was non-existent and unthinkable.
Members of
ganas were encouraged to fit themselves into a hierarchical, monarchical
framework by a number of factors. Kings were not the only enemies of the ganas .
The relationships between competing ganas must have been a constant political
problem. Ganas that claimed sovereignty over certain territory were always faced
by the competing claims of other corporate groups.64
How were these claims to be sorted out, other than by force? The king had an
answer to this question: if he were acknowledged as "the only monarch [i.e.
raja, chief executive] of all the corporations," 65
he would commit himself to preserving the legitimate privileges of each of them,
and even protect the lesser members of each gana from abuse of power by their
leaders. It was a tempting offer, and since the alternative was constant battle,
it was slowly accepted, sometimes freely, sometimes under compulsion. The end
result was the acceptance of a social order in which many ganas and sanghas
existed, but none were sovereign and none were committed to any general
egalitarian view of society. They were committed instead to a hierarchy in which
they were promised a secure place.66
Such a notional hierarchy seems to have been constructed in North India by the
fifth century A.D. Even the Buddhist sangha accommodated itself to it -- which
led eventually to the complete victory of the rival Brahmans.
This was not
quite the end of republicanism, because "government by discussion"
continued within many ganas and sanghas ; but the idea of hierarchy and
inequality, of caste, was increasingly dominant. The degree of corporate
autonomy in later Indian society, which is considerable and in itself a very
important fact, is in this sense a different topic that the one we have been
following. A corporation that accepts itself as a subcaste in a great divine
hierarchy is different from the more pugnacious ganas and sanghas of the Pali
Canon, Kautilya or even the Jataka stories.
What have
modern historians made of what we might call the golden age of Indian
republicanism? We have already distinguished above between two eras of
scholarship on the topic. In the first, patriotic enthusiasm and the simple
thrill of discovery of unsuspected material characterized scholars' reactions.
The former attitude was especially seen in K.P. Jayaswal's Hindu Polity .
Published first in article form in 1911-1913, then as a book in 1924, Jayaswal's
work was avowedly aimed to show that his countrymen were worthy of independence
from Britain. The history of "Hindu" institutions demonstrated an
ancient talent for politics:
The test of a polity is
its capacity to live and develop, and its contribution to the culture and
happiness of humanity. Hindu polity judged by this test will come out very
successfully...The Golden Age of [the Hindu's] polity lies not in the Past but
in the Future... Constitutional or social advancement is not a monopoly of any
particular race.67
In Jayaswal's book
scholarship was sometimes subordinated to his argument. In his discussion of
ancient republics (which was not his only subject), the evidence was pushed at
least as far as it would go to portray the republics as inspiring examples of
early democracy.68
A similar, though quieter satisfaction can be seen in the contemporary
discussions of R.C. Majumdar and D.R. Bhandarkar.69
In the second
period of scholarship, in the years since independence, a more restrained
attitude has been adopted by younger scholars who feel they have nothing to
prove. Among these scholars the general tendency has been to emphasize that the
republics were not real republics, in the modern usage that implies a universal
adult suffrage. The clan-basis and the exclusiveness of the ruling class are
much discussed. Sometimes writers have bent over backwards to divorce the Indian
republican experience from the history of democracy: 70
thus A.K. Majumdar's judgement that because in a gana-rajya "all
inhabitants other than the members of the raja-kulas [had] no rights [and] were
treated as inferior citizens," people were actually better off in the
monarchies, where "if not the general mass, at least the intellectuals and
the commercial community enjoyed freedom in a monarchy, which seems to have been
lacking in a gana-rajya." 71
The contrast drawn here is not backed up by any real argument, and makes one
wonder about the how the author defines "freedom."
The reaction
has perhaps gone too far.72
One feels that modern scholars have still not come to grips with the existence
of widespread republicanism in a region so long thought to be the home par
excellence of "Oriental Despotism." 73
Republicanism now has a place in every worthwhile book about ancient India, but
it tends to be brushed aside so that one can get back to the main story, which
is the development of the surviving Hindu tradition.74
Historians, in India as elsewhere, seem to feel that anything which could be so
thoroughly forgotten must have had grievous flaws to begin with.75
Most historians still cannot discuss these republics without qualifying using
the qualifiers "tribal" or "clan."76
Long ago Jayaswal rightly protested against the use of these terms: "The
evidence does not warrant our calling [republics] 'clans.' Indian republics of
the seventh [sic] and sixth centuries B.C...had long passed the tribal stage of
society. They were states, Ganas and Samghas, though many of them likely had a
national or tribal basis, as every state, ancient or modern, must necessarily
have." 77
He was equally correct when he pointed out that "Every state in ancient
Rome and Greece was 'tribal' in the last analysis, but no constitutional
historian would think of calling the republics of Rome and Greece mere tribal
organizations." 78
Yet the phrases
"clan-" and "tribal-republic" are still routinely used today
in the Indian context, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are
being used perjoratively. In both common and scholarly usage, to label a
people's institutions or culture as tribal is to dismiss them from serious
consideration. "Tribespeople" are historical dead-ends, and their
suppression or absorption by more advanced cultures (usually those ruled by
centralizing governments) is taken for granted.79
The terminology of even Indian historians demonstrates the survival of an
ancient but inappropriate prejudice in the general evaluation of Indian
republicanism.
Once that
prejudice is overcome, Indian republicanism gains a strong claim on the
attention of historians, especially those with an interest in comparative or
world history.
It is
especially remarkable that, during the near-millenium between 500 B.C. and 400
A.D., we find republics almost anywhere in India that our sources allow us to
examine society in any detail. Unless those sources, not least our Greek
sources, are extremely deceptive, the republics of India were very likely more
extensive and populous than the poleis of the Greeks.80
One cannot help wondering how in many other parts of Eurasia republican and
democratic states may have co-existed with the royal dynasties that are a staple
of both ancient and modern chronology and conceptualization. This may well be an
unanswerable question, but so far no one has even tried to investigate it. If an
investigation is made, we may discover things that are as surprising to us as
the republics of India originally were.
The existence
of Indian republicanism is a discovery of the twentieth century. The
implications of this phenomenon have yet to be fully digested, because
historians of the past century have been inordinately in love with the virtues
of centralized authority and government by experts, and adhered to an
evolutionary historicism that has little good to say about either direct or
representative democracy. Perhaps the love affair is fading. If so, historians
will find, in the Indian past as elsewhere, plenty of raw material for a new
history of the development of human government.
Notes for
"Democracy in Ancient India"
In referring to classical
sources, I have usually not given full citations to the editions, on the
assumption that specialists will know how to find them, but that general readers
will be more interested in the translations.
Also,
references to Indian primary materials will be made to English translations
(where available). Nearly all the secondary literature on the topic is in
English.
1. See for
example Herodotus, The Histories 7. 135, trans. Aubrey de Sélincourt, rev. ed.
(Harmondsworth, 1972), p. 485: the famous reply of the Spartan emissaries to the
Persian general Hydarnes. Back
to text.
2. For more on
this, see Steven Muhlberger and Phil Paine, "Democracy's Place in World
History," Journal of World History 4 (1993): 23-45 and the World
History of Democracy site, especially Chapter
Two -- Democracy at the Basic Level: Government by consent in small communities.
Back to
text.
3. A.S. Altekar,
State and Government in Ancient India, 3rd edn. rev. and enlarged (Delhi, 1958;
first ed. 1949), p. 1; the Manu-Smrti translated by G. Bühler as The Laws of
Manu, vol. 25 of Sacred Books of the East, hereafter SBE] ed. F. Max Müller
(Oxford, 1886). Back
to text.
4. Kautilya's
Arthasastra, trans. by R. Shamasastry, 4th ed. (Mysore, 1951; first ed. 1915).
Back to text.
5. Altekar,
State and Government in Ancient India, p. 1 (hereafter State and Government );
but see the same work, p. 109, where the statement is qualified as a prelude to
discussing republics.
Back to text.
6. Altekar,
State and Government, pp. 110-111; K.P. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity: A Constitutional
History of India in Hindu Times, 2nd. and enl. ed. (Bangalore, 1943), p. 58. Back
to text.
7. An
introduction to the Pali Canon may be found in R.C. Majumdar, The History and
Culture of the Indian People, vol. 2, The Age of Imperial Unity, (Bombay, 1951),
pp. 396-411. Back
to text.
8. (London,
1903). Back
to text.
9. See, for
instance, Sir Henry Sumner Maine, Village Communities in the East and West
(1889; reprint edn. New York, 1974). Back
to text.
10. K.P. Jayaswal, Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times 2nd and
enl. edn. (Bangalore, 1943), published first in article form in 1911-13; D.R.
Bhandarkar, Lectures on the Ancient History of India on the Period form 650 to
325 B.C., The Carmichael Lectures, 1918 (Calcutta, 1919); R.C. Majumdar.
Corporate Life in Ancient India, (orig. written in 1918; cited here from the 3rd
ed., Calcutta, 1969, as Corporate Life). Back
to text.
11. E.g.
Altekar (n. 6); J.P. Sharma, Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.-500 B.C. (Leiden,
1968) [hereafter Republics]; U.N. Ghoshal, A History of Indian Public Life, vol.
2, The Pre-Maurya and Maurya Period (Oxford, 1966). For the embarrassment, see
Sharma, Republics, pp. 2-3. Back
to text.
12. Sharma,
Republics, pp. 15-62, 237. Back
to text.
13. Narendra
Wagle, Society at the Time of the Buddha (Bombay: 1966), pp. 27-28. Back
to text.
14. Wagle,
Society at the Time of the Buddha, pp. 147-148. Back
to text.
15. Sukumar
Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India (London, 1957), pp. 35-44. Back
to text.
16. V.S. Agrawala, India as Known to Panini: A study of the cultural material in the Ashatadhyayi,
2nd edn. rev. and enl. (Varanasi, 1963), pp. 426-444 [hereafter, Panini];
Sharma, Republics, pp. 8-14. A.K. Majumdar, Concise History of Ancient History,
vol. 2: Political Theory, Administration, and Economic Life (New Delhi, 1980),
p. 131 [hereafter, Concise History]. Back
to text.
17. It is often
assumed in the literature that mercenary bands or wild tribes must be clearly
distinguished from true political communities. A reading of Xenophon's Anabasis
(trans. by W.H.D. Rouse as The March Up Country (New York and East Lansing,
1959)) would give food for thought about this distinction. The army Xenophon was
part of and led for a time is perhaps the best documented example of the
day-to-day political life of a Greek community that we have. Back
to text.
18. See "Arrianus,
Flavius" Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1970), pp. 122-123.
Back to
text.
19.. Arrian
5.1-2; all translations from the Greek sources are taken from R.C. Majumdar's
compilation, The Classical Accounts of India (Calcutta, 1960) [hereafter
Classical Accounts] -- in this case, p. 20. However, those who don't have access
to that handy work can find these authors, whose books are all well-known
classical works, in standard editions and translations. Back
to text.
20. Arrian,
5.22, 5.25-6.14, Classical Accounts, pp. 47, 64-75. Back
to text.
21. Q. Curtius
Rufus, History of Alexander the Great 9.8, Classical Accounts, p. 151; Diodorus
Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica 17.104, Classical Accounts, p. 180. Back
to text.
22. Ibid.
Back to
text.
23.
Altekar, State and Government, p. 111. Back
to text.
24.
Diodorus Siculus 2.39, Classical Accounts, p. 236; cf. Arrian's Indika 9,
Classical Accounts, p. 223, which seems to derive from the same source, i.e.
Megasthenes, for whom see below. Back
to text.
25. Otto Stein,
"Megasthenes (2)," Real-Encyclopädie der classischen
Altertumwissenschaft, ed. A. von Pauly, G. Wissowa, et. al. (Stuttgart, 1893-)
vol. 15, pt. 1, col. 232-3. Back
to text.
26. R.C. Majumdar, Classical Accounts, Appendix I, pp. 461-473, throws doubt on the
authority of this whole section of Diodorus (2.35-42, called "the Epitome
of Megasthenes,"), but classicists do not share his doubts, though they
grant that the original material may have been handled roughly by later
epitomizers. See Otto Stein, "Megasthenes (2)," col. 255; Barbara C.J.
Timmer, Megasthenes en de Indische Maatschaapij (Amsterdam, 1930); Diodorus of
Sicily, trans. by C.H. Oldfather Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1935), vol. 2, p.
vii. Back
to text.
27.
Kautilya, 11.1; Agrawala, Panini, pp. 445-457; see the short history of known
republics in Altekar, State and Government pp. 118-123. See Joseph E.
Schwartzenberg, ed., A Historical Atlas of South Asia (Chicago and London,
1978), p. 16 (Plate III.B.2). Back
to text.
28.
Agrawala, Panini, pp. 426-428; Benoychandra Sen, Studies in the Buddhist Jatakas:
Tradition and Polity (Calcutta, 1974), pp. 157-159. Back
to text.
29.
Agrawala, Panini, pp. 430-432. Back
to text.
30.
Altekar, State and Government, p. 135; Sharma, Republics, pp. 12-13, 99-108,
112, 175-176. Back
to text.
31.
Altekar, State and Government, p. 114. Back
to text.
32. Wagle,
Society at the Time of the Buddha, pp. 132-33, 156-158. Back
to text.
33. Georges
Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, tr. Victor Goldhammer (Chicago,
1980); Jacques Le Goff, "Labor, Techniques and Craftsmen in the Value
Systems of the Early Middle Ages (Fifth to Tenth Centuries)," in Time,
Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, tr. Victor Goldhammer (Chicago, 1980), pp.
71-86. Back
to text.
34. Agrawala, Panini, pp. 436-439. Contra, Ghoshal, A History of Indian Public Life, ii, p.
195, n. 5, who rejects Agrawala's interpretation of the evidence in Panini and
Kautilya, and insists on a strict (but anachronistic) division between
political, military, and social and economic groups. A fair reading of Kautilya
shows that "corporations" of whatever sort could be important
political and military factors, whether they were sovereign or not, and whether
they "lived by the name of raja" (Kautilya, 11.1, tr. Shamasastry, p.
407) or not. Back
to text.
35. See esp.
R.C. Majumdar, Corporate Life, pp. 18-29, 60-63; Charles Drekmeier, Kingship and
Community in Early India (Stanford, 1962), pp. 275-277. Back
to text.
36. W.G.
Forrest, The Emergence of Greek Democracy, 800-400 B.C. (New York, 1966), esp.
pp. 67-97; J.K. Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy: The Evolution of
the Civil Life, 1000-1350, esp. 48-60, 104-118; John Hine Mundy, Liberty and
Political Power in Toulouse 1050-1230 (New York, 1954). Back
to text.
37. Agrawala, Panini, p. 432. Again cf. Italy at the beginning of the High Middle Ages, Hyde,
Society and Politics in Medieval Italy, pp. 56-57. Back
to text.
38. Jataka 149,
trans. in The Jataka, or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births, ed. E.B. Cowell,
tr. by Various Hands, 6 vols. (1895; reprint, London, 1957), 1: 316. Jataka 301
(Cowell trans., 3: 1) also mentions 7707 kings, "all of them given to
argument and disputation." Back
to text.
39. Every
scholar to approach this material has wrestled with this number, none more
diligently than Sharma, Republics, pp. 99-104. It is hard to take any of them
very seriously once one has examined Jataka 149 itself. Here, as in many other
places, 7077 is used as a large, ideal number. Back
to text.
40. Similarly
suggestive numbers can be found in Jataka 465 (Cowell trans., 4: 94) where 500
Licchavi kings (not necessarily the entire body of kings) are mentioned; in the
Mahavastu, which refers to "twice 84,000 Licchavi rajas residing within the
city of Vesali," (Sharma, Republics, p. 99; the Mahavastu is yet
untranslated into a European language) and Jataka 547 (Cowell trans., 6: 266),
which mentions 60,000 ksatriyas in the Ceta state, all of whom were styled
rajano (Agrawala, Panini, p. 432). Back
to text.
41. Agrawala, Panini, p. 430; Sharma, Republics, p. 101; A.K. Majumdar, Concise History, 2:
140. No translation of the Lalitavistara into a European language was available
to me. Back
to text.
42. Mahabharata
12.107, trans. by R.C. Majumdar, Corporate Life, 251. Back
to text.
43. A.K. Majumdar, Concise History, 2: 140, referring to Acharangasutra II.3.1.10. The
SBE translation of the Acharangasutra (vol. 22 (1884), tr. Hermann Jacobi) of
this passage entirely conceals the meaning of gana. This is typical of older
translations, and some not so old (e.g. the Roy trans. of the Mahabharata, Santi
Parva (Calcutta, 1962), c. 107, where Roy insists that gana here must be
understood as denoting an aristocracy of wealth and blood). Back
to text.
44. Agrawala, Panini, pp. 433-435. Back
to text.
45. The
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta: Buddhist Suttas vol. 1, tr. T.W. Rhys Davids, SBE 11
(1881): 1-136. Mahavagga, Kullavagga, and Pattimokkha: Vinaya Texts, tr. T.W.
Rhys Davids and H. Oldenberg, SBE vol. 13, 17, 20 (1881, 1882, 1885). Back
to text.
46. Mahavagga
1.28, SBE 13: 169-170. Back
to text.
47. Note
complex rules, e.g. Mahavagga 9.4.7-8, SBE 17: 217-272, establishing who has the
right to vote (i.e., in such cases, to object). Back
to text.
48. Kullavagga
4.9-14, SBE 20: 24-65. Back
to text.
49. Kullavagga
4.10.1, SBE 20: 20-26, where it is stated that taking of votes is invalid
"when the taker of votes [an elected official] knows that those whose
opinions are not in accordance with the law will be in the majority," or
"when he is in doubt whether the voting will result in a schism in the
Samgha," or "when they do not vote in accordance with the view that
they really hold." Kullavagga 4.14.26, SBE 20: 56-57 shows how the
vote-taker was permitted to prevent the will of the majority from being enacted
even in a secret vote, by throwing out the results if the winners' opinion went
against the law -- or his interpretation of it. Back
to text.
50. See
Kullavagga 4.14.25-26, SBE 20: 54-57, where the emphasis is on reconciling monks
to a decision which they were opposed to. Voting is one method of doing so;
manipulation of votes preserves the religious law without splitting the sangha. Back
to text.
51. It is
commonly accepted by scholars that the regulations we have been discussing are,
in the form we have them, the product of a long evolution, though all of them
are attributed to the Buddha. See Rhys Davids' and Oldenberg's introduction to
the Vinaya Texts, SBE 13: ix-xxxvii, and notes throughout. For the concern with
disunity, see the extract from the Maha-parinibbana-suttanta (i.1) below; the
Mahabharata, Santi Parva 107, and Kautilya, 11.1 (which despite their monarchist
purpose, contain passages of republican thought -- see below, n. 71); Altekar,
State and Government, pp. 129-130; A.K. Majumdar, Concise History, 2: 140. Back
to text.
52.
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta 1.1, SBE 9: 6-7; see below. Back
to text.
53. Altekar,
pp. 126-127, 132-134; Sharma, Republics, pp. 12, 110-111. Back
to text.
54. Corporate
Life, pp. 233-234; A.K. Majumdar, Concise History, 2: 137. Back
to text.
55. The
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta is the story of the "great decease of the
Buddha" and as such includes both colorful anecdotes and important
last-minute instructions to his followers. Back
to text.
56. The Pali
Canon uses both the term Vajji (Vriji in Sanskrit) and Licchavi to designate a
republican polity based at Vesali. Scholars believe that the Licchavi were the
people who lived at Vesali, while Vajji was the name of a confederation that
they headed. For a detailed discussion, see Sharma, Republics, pp. 81-84, 93-97.
Back to
text.
57.
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta 1.1, SBE 11: 6-7. Back
to text.
58. In this
sense R.C. Majumdar was right in calling the Buddha "an apostle of
democracy;" Corporate Life, p. 219. Contra, Drekmeier, Kingship and
Community in Early India, p. 113. Back
to text.
59. Sen,
Studies in the Buddhist Jatakas, pp. 60-64. Compare Burton Stein, Peasant State
and Society in Medieval South India (Delhi, 1980) for a similar evaluation of
South Indian monarchy in a later period. Back
to text.
60. Altekar,
State and Government, p. 136. Back
to text.
61. Altekar,
State and Government, pp. 137-138; A.K. Majumdar, Concise History, 2: 144. Back
to text.
62. Agrawala, Panini, p. 428. What may be the clearest statement of egalitarian political
ideology only comes to us through many intermediaries, as a tantalizing passage
in Diodorus Siculus (2.39; Classical Accounts, p. 236) which seems to derive
from Megasthenes: "Of several remarkable customs existing among the
Indians, there is one prescribed by their [sc. Indian] ancient philosophers
which one may regard as truly admirable: for the law ordains that no one among
them shall, under any circumstances, be a slave, but that, enjoying freedom,
they shall respect the principle of equality in all persons: for those, they
thought, who have learned neither to domineer over nor to cringe to others will
attain the life best adapted for all vicissitudes of lot: since it is silly to
make laws on the basis of equality of all persons and yet to establish
inequalities in social intercourse." Megasthenes (who was a contemporary of
Kautilya) is often criticized for the good reason that slavery and other forms
of inequality did indeed exist among the Indians. But perhaps he correctly
presented the views of "their ancient philosophers." Back
to text.
63. Kautilya,
11.1, Shamasastry tr. p. 410. The Mahabharata, Santi Parva, a royalist treatise
on morality and politics, likewise mentions ganas (in c. 107; cf. c. 81) only to
show how a raja who is not yet a true monarch in his state can implement his
will -- and as we have seen, eliminating popular participation in government is
an essential part of this. It is interesting to note that there are in both
works passages that urge the raja to cooperate with the gana and, like the
Maha-parinibbana-suttanta, emphasize the dangers to a gana of disunity. R.C.
Majumdar (in Ancient India, 7th ed. (Delhi, 1974), p. 159) regarded Mahabharata,
Santi Parva 107 as a piece of republican political science reworked for
monarchist purposes. Back
to text.
64. Altekar,
State and Government, p. 124, draws attention to the existence of
republican-style local government within the greater republic. Cf. the Italian
situation described by Hyde, Society and Politics in Medieval Italy, p. 104:
"Government under medieval conditions was always a precarious matter...the
Italian cities faced special problems of their own, derived from the fact that
the commune was originally no more than one kind of societas in a society that
abounded in societates, so that it was an uphill task to assert any special
claim to the loyalty and obedience of the citizens." Back
to text.
65. Kautilya,
11.1, Shamasastry trans., p. 410. Back
to text.
66. See R.C.
Majumdar, Corporate Life, pp. 42-59 for the attitude of later Dharmasastra
writers to the place of semi-autonomous corporations and kindreds in the
monarchical polity of the fifth century A.D. and later. Back
to text.
67. Pp.
366-367. Back
to text.
68. N.B. the
introduction: "To the memory of the Republican Vrishnis, Kathas, Vaisalas,
and Sakyas who announced philosophies of freedom from devas, death, cruelty and
caste." Back
to text.
69. See above,
n. 10. Back
to text.
70. See esp.
Ghoshal's treatment, A History of Indian Public Life, ii, pp. 185-197, which
goes almost as far in one direction as Jayaswal went in the other. Cf. Drekmeier,
Kingship and Community in Early India, p. 279; A.K. Majumdar, Concise History,
ii, pp. 139-144; Burton Stein, "Politics, Peasants and the Deconstruction
of Feudalism in Medieval India," Journal of Peasant Studies, xii, no. 2-3
(1985), p. 62 (discussing South India at a later period). Back
to text.
71. A.K. Majumdar, Concise History, 2: 143. Back
to text.
72. A similar
tendency in recent decades to dismiss democratic elements in classical Athens
and republican Rome is now being challenged: e.g. Ellen Meiksins Wood,
Peasant-Citizens and Slave: The Foundation of Athenian Democracy, corrected
paperback edn. (London, 1989) and much more cautiously by John North,
"Politics and Aristocracy in the Roman Republic," Classical Philology,
85 (1990): 277-287 and reply to W.V. Harris's criticisms, pp. 297-298; John
North, "Democratic Politics in Republican Rome," Past and Present 126
(1990): 3-21. Back
to text.
73.
Romila Thapar, A History of India, vol. 1 (Harmondsworth, 1966), p. 19;
Bhandarkar, Lectures on the Ancient History of India, p. ix (written in 1918):
"We have been so much accustomed to read and hear of Monarchy in India
being always and invariably unfettered and despotic that the above conclusion
[that republics were important in ancient India] is apt to appear incredible to
many as it no doubt was to me for a long time." Back
to text.
74. A.L.
Basham, The Wonder That was India (London, 1954), pp. 96-98. Back
to text.
75. In
European history, the Anglo-Saxons have often been treated as a failed culture,
and the Visigothic kingdom of Spain is seldom approached in any other way. See
the opening remarks of Roger Collins, The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710-789
(Oxford, 1989). Back
to text.
76.
Thapar is one of the few to avoid this usage. Back
to text.
77. Jayaswal,
Hindu Polity, p. 46. Back
to text.
78.
Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, p. 116. Back
to text.
79. For a
general discussion of the concept of "tribalism," see Eric R. Wolf,
Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley, 1982). Back
to text.
80.
Agrawala, Panini, pp. 479-493. Back
to text.
Originally
posted February 8, 1998.
Copyright (C)
1998, Steven Muhlberger. This file may be copied on the condition that the
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