Lectures on the Ancient History of India

by D R Bhandarkar

  Oligarchy was thus one kind of Gaṇa-Saṁgha. Let us see what the other kind was. This kind is represented by the Lichchhavi Gaṇa. I have already told you that it was a federation of the chiefs of the different clans of a tribe who were also each the ruler of a small principality. I have remarked above that it was the custom of a Kshatriya chief backed up by his clan to go on conquering and carving out a small kingdom for himself. It seems that the cheifs of some of the clans comprising the Lichchhavi tribe had similarly made themselves masters of the different districts and for some time remained independent of one another. A time seems to have come when instincts of self-preservation and safety impelled the various petty rulers to form themselves into a Saṁgha or confederacy. Each confederated principality maintained its separate autonomy in regard to certain matters such e.g. as the judicial administration, and allowed the Saṁgha to exercise supreme and independent control in respect of others affecting the kingdom, vesting the executive power in the hands of the select few. I know that perhaps some of you will feel tempted to compare the constitution of the Lichchhavi Saṁgha to the confederation of the German States called the German Empire. I admit that there are some points of resemblance here, but unfortunately we do not know enough about the former to institute any comparison that will be interesting or profitable.

  I shall now touch upon two points only connected with Gaṇa. We do not know to what earliest period the existence of this Saṁgha can be traced. Certain it is that they were by no means few in the period we have selected i.e. from 650 to 325 B.C. And they were certainly known as late as the 6th century A.D., because Varāhamihira in his work entitled the Bṛihat-saṁhitā45 speaks not only of Gaṇarājyas i.e. kingdoms of the tribal Gaṇas in Southern India but also of Gaṇa-puṅgavas or Heads of Gaṇas such as of the Mālavas, Kaulindas and Śibis. The second point that may be briefly considered is: how did the institution of Gaṇa arise? Did it originate in the political or in the non-political sphere? In this connection let me draw your attention to a passage in the Bṛihad-āranyak-opanishad.46 The passage says that just as Brāhmaṇ or Supreme Being created the four classes of Brāhmaṇs, Kshatriyas, Vaiśyas and Śūdras among human beings, it created similar classes among the gods also. The Brāhmaṇ amongst gods was Agni, the Kshatriyas amongst them were Indra, Varuṇa, Soma and so on, and Vaiśyas among them, Vasus, Rudras, Ādityas and so forth. And then in connection with the Vaiśya class amongst the gods occurs the following sentence: sa n=aiva vyabhavat sa viśam=asṛi-jata yāny=etāni deva-jātāni gaṇaśa=ākhyāyante Vasavo Rudrā etc. etc. On the term gaṇaśāḥ Śaṅkarāchārya comments as follows: gaṇaśo gaṇaṁ gaṇam=ākhyāyante kathyante Gaṇa prāyā visaḥ prāyeṇa saṁhatā hi vitt-opārjane samarthā n=aikaikaśaḥ. This gloss leaves no doubt as to the sense in which the word gaṇa is to be taken here.47 And as the passage from the Upanishad speaks of Gaṇas only in the case of Vaiśyas and not of Brāhmaṇs, Kshatriyas or Śūdras, it appears that we had commercial Gaṇas (i.e. Śreṇis) first among the Vaiśyas before there were political Gaṇas among the Kshatriyas. If the former is the prototype of the latter, the former must have been divided into Kulas as the latter were. And I was for a long time wondering whether any trace could ever be found of a commercial Gaṇa being divided into Kulas, as no doubt it seemed very natural. I am glad that my efforts have proved successful, and there is now evidence that there were Kulikas even among merchants belonging to a guild. This evidence is furnished by the seals found in the excavations at Bhiṭā and at Basarh48 or ancient Vesāli, capital of the Lichchhavis. We have here seals not only of Kulikas,49 but also Prathama-Kulikas, meaning Kulikas who apparently were chiefs (of Gaṇas).

  We thus see that Gaṇa was one kind of political Saṁgha. Let us now see what the other kinds were. We will here revert to the Greek accounts of the political Saṁghas existing in the Panjāb and Sind in Alexander’s time. We have seen that Curtius and Diodorus mention a people who possessed not one but many cities and whose form of government was not regal but democratic. On the other hand from Arrian we learn that Nysa was a City that was governed by an aristocracy consisting of 300 members and one President. The Greeks were so much accustomed to the nicest distinctions between an aristocracy, oligarchy and democracy that it is inconceivable that they could have gone wrong in describing these forms of government. When, therefore, we are told that a district containing many cities was administered by a democracy, we are compelled to infer that we have here the government not of a city but of a country, conducted not by a small body but by the assembly of the people. We regret that we are not in possession of more details which certainly would have been very interesting; but what is preserved to us is enough to show that here is the second type of the political Saṁgha that we have to note. But a question here naturally arises: have we got any evidence from the Indian sources which confirms the above reference? I am glad I am in a position to answer this question in the affirmative. We hear of two kinds of popular government: (1) Nigama and (2) Janapada. Both are democracies, but the sway of the first was confined to a single town and of the second extended over a province. Just as we have got the coins of Gaṇas, such as Yaudheyas, Mālavas and so forth, we have coins also of Janapadas which can here denote only ‘the people of a country in contradistinction to the ‘tribe’ signified by Gaṇa. The latter represents a government by the component families of a tribe and the former, a government of the people, in other words a democracy. Thus we have found one class of coins which bear the legend: rājaña-janapadasa=(coin) of the Rājanya people.50 The word Rājanya here is not a synonym of Kshatriya or the Sanskritised form of the Rājpūt title Rāṇā as is commonly supposed but rather the name of a people corresponding to the Rāṇās of the Panjāb hills51 or Rāṇes of the Goa territory. The second class of coins to be noted in this connection contains the legend: Majhimikāya śibi-janapadasa=(coin) of the Śibi people of the Madhyamikā (country).52 We thus have at least two instances of Janapada, viz. of the Rājanyas and Śibis, having struck coins. And as issuing coins is taken to be an indication, of political power, this Janapada may rightly be looked upon as a democracy, and hence one distinct form of political Saṁgha. The existence of the Janapada or democratic government in India is traceable to a still earlier period. Thus in the Aitareya-Brāhmaṇa (VIII. 14) we have a passage which refers to the different forms of sovereign power. There we are told that the Rājans of the Prāchyas, the Rājans of the Satvats, and so on, are, when crowned, designated respectively Samrāṭs, Bhojas and so forth, but that the Janapadas called the Uttara-Kurus and Uttara-Madras are styled Virāṭs when they are consecrated to sovereignty. Janapada is here contrasted with Rājan and cited as a form of sovereignty. The natural conclusion is that Janapada is a political form of government which was of a democratic nature and was the rule of a country (as opposed to the rule of a town) by its people. Unfortunately we know nothing about its constitution.

  If a Janapada had its Saṁgha or democracy, there is nothing strange in a Nigama or town having sometimes a similar form of government. Let me here place before you certain facts revealed by works of Hindu law and epigraphic records. The Vivāda-ratnākara, a treatise on Hindu Law, has a chapter called Saṁvid-vyatikramaḥ, in which the various corporate bodies are referred to, and quotes two verses from the Nārada-Smṛiti which certain organisations are specified, viz. the Pāshaṇḍas, Naigamas, Śreṇis, Pūgas, Vrātas and Gaṇas.53 Now the term Naigama been rendered by the author of this works Paurāḥ, i.e. the body of citizens. We know that the parts into which a country was divided were pura or capital-town, nigama or mofussil town, and grāma or village. And it is from this nigama that the term Naigama has been derived. The law-giver Yājñavalkya54 too speaks of Naigama as a corporate body along with and distinct from, Śreṇins, Pāshaṇḍis and Gaṇas, and the commentary Bālaṁbhaṭṭi explains the term by nānā-paura-samūhah, i.e. aggregations of the lanifold citizens. But it may be argued that this evidence merely proves that t
he people of any city could form themselves into a corporation out not necessarily that this was a political body which exercised sovereignty. Now, Sir Alexander Cunningham picked up some coins rom the Panjāb and of very nearly the same time as that of Alexander, which, as was first shown by Bühler,55 had all on the obverse the word negamā but on the reverse various names such as Dojaka, Tālimata, Atakatakā and so forth. It is natural to take Negama here to stand for Naigamāḥ, i.e. the body of citizens such as that mentioned in the Yājāñavalkya and Nārada Smṛitis, and the names Dojaka, Tālimata and Atakatakā for those of the towns to which they belonged. The Naigamas of a town which could strike coinage must be looked upon as a corporate body endowed with political power. This is exactly in keeping with the statement of the Visuddhimagga (Ch. XIV) that some Nigamas or towns and Gāmas or villages also could issue money. In this connection, again, we have to take into consideration the contents of an inscription in Cave No. 18 at Nāsik. The inscription is: Nāsikakanaṁ Dhaṁbhika-gāmasa dānaṁ. The natural interpretation is that proposed by Pandit Bhagwānlāl Indraji who says that it records the gift of the village of Dhaṁbhika by the inhabitants of Nāsīk.56 We have here not one individual or a guild, but the whole people of a town, granting a village. And it is inconceivable that they could have done so unless they constituted a government holding sway over the town and its adjunct villages or nigama-grāmas as they are called. When we, therefore, find that the people of a city could issue their own coinage and could together give any village in charity, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we have here an instance of a Nigama Saṁgha or town democracy. Nay, towns could sometimes be governed by an aristocracy. We have already seen on the authority of Arrian that the form of government at Nysa was an aristocracy comprising 300 members and headed by the president. This would be another form of Nigama-Saṁgha which is neither an oligarchy nor a democracy.

  So much for the different kinds of the political Saṁgha that I have been able to trace at present. There must have been many other types of Collegiate Sovereignty prevalent in Ancient India, which I have no doubt the find of new materials and a re-examination of the old ones will bring to light. A few minutes ago I threw out a hint that the political Saṁgha called Gaṇa was constituted after the model of the commercial Gaṇa. The other political Saṁghas, viz. Nigama and Janapada, seem however to be the natural developments of the municipal administrations of towns and districts which were scattered all over ancient India and about which I may be able to say something next year. But the terms Saṁgha and Gaṇa were appropriated also by religious communities, such as e.g. Jainism and Buddhism. As regards the Jaina congregation it was split up into Gaṇas, Kulas and Śākhās, a long list of which has been set forth in the Sthavirāvali of the Kalpasūtra. And this list not many years ago received a remarkable corroboration from the specification of these Gaṇas, Kulas and Śākhās in the Kushana inscriptions found at Mathurā.57 The Jaina congregation evidently was modelled after the commercial Gaṇa, or rather after the political Gaṇa, because the founder of Jainism was a Kshatriya, born in a suburb of Vesāli, capital of the Lichchhavi Gaṇa, and himself related to a Chief of this Gaṇa; and it is more natural to think that he framed his congregation after the pattern of the Gaṇa he must have known best. The Buddhist Saṁgha was of an entirely different type. It is true that at the beginning of the Mahā-parinibbāna-sutta Buddha advises his Saṁgha to imitate the characteristic concord and amity of the Lichchhavi Gaṇa, but nowhere is it hinted that they were alike in respect of internal constitution. On the contrary, the constituents of a Gaṇa viz. Kulas etc. which were the special feature of the Lichchhavi Gaṇa and are clearly noticeable in the Jaina congregation, are, however, conspicuous by their absence in the Buddhist Saṁgha. The latter seems, therefore, to correspond to some Nigama or Janapada-Saṁgha.

  It does not require any stretch of imagination to see that these political Saṁghas were of a highly specialised order. We constantly hear of the councils or parishads of the Lichchhavis and their holding frequent meetings. We also hear of sabhās and samitis of the Nigama and Janapada-Saṁghas. Is it possible to know something about the mode in which they carried on their deliberations? This question must now present itself to us. Fortunately for us the Vinaya-piṭaka of the Buddhist scriptures has preserved the code of procedure according to which the meetings of the Buddhist congregation were held and conducted. As this congregation was a Saṁgha, it is perfectly intelligible that the set of rules which governed its deliberations must in their essence have governed those of any Saṁgha, be it political, municipal or commercial. Let us therefore try and know from the Vinaya-piṭaka what the procedure of the Buddhist Saṁgha was. You will perhaps be surprised when I tell you that it was of a highly specialised and developed character such as is observed by the political bodies of our twentieth century. The first point to note is the order of precedence according to which seats were assigned to the Bhikshus. There was a special officer whose duty was to see that they received seats in accordance with their dignity and seniority. He was called Āsana-prajñāpaka. We have got a reference to such functionary in the account of the Coucil of Vesāli preserved in the Chullavagga of the Vinaya-piṭaka. I quote a passage from it:58

  “Now at that time a Bhikkhu named Ajita, of ten years’ standing, was the reciter of the Pātimokkha to the Saṁgha. Him did the Saṁgha appoint as seat regulator (āsana-paññāpaka) to the Thera Bhikkhus.”

  The deliberations are commenced by the mover who announces to the assembled members what motion he is going to propose. This announcement is called Jñapti. Then comes the second part of the procedure which consists in putting the question to the Saṁgha whether they approve the motion. It may be put once or thrice. In the former case the Karma or ecclesiastical act is called Jñapti-dvitīya, and in the latter, Jñapti-chaturtha. I will give an instance to explain what I mean and shall quote it from the Mahāvagga. Buddha lays down the following rule in regard to the Upasaṁpadā ordination.59 “Let a learned competent Bhikkhu,” says he, “proclaim the blowing ñatti before the Saṁgha :

  “Let the Saṁgha, reverend Sirs, hear me. This person N. N. desires to receive the upasaṁpadā ordination from the venerable N. N. (i.e. with the venerable N. N. as his upajjhāya). If the Saṁgha is ready, let the Saṁgha confer on N. N. the upasaṁpadā ordination with N. N. as upajjhāya. This is the ñatti.” Now what follows is Karmavāchā which is placing the motion before the Saṁgha for discussion and execution (Karma), and is in every case accompanied by the formal repetition of the Jñapti. In the present case the Karmavāchā is repeated thrice. I therefore quote here what follows.