Page:The Ganas or Republics of Ancient India.pdf/2

264 a "republic was thrice established" in India. $8$  Certain cities are also mentioned by him where "at last the sovereignty was dissolved and democratic government set up." $9$  The Maltecoroe, the Singhoe, the Moruni, the Marohoe and the Rarungi were, as he says, free nations with no kings. They occupied mountain heights where they had built many cities. $10$  This is the earliest foreign report about the existence of republican states among the Hindus.

Nor had republics passed into the domain of legend towards the end of the fourth century B. C. For the India that was encountered by the Greeks who had preceded Megasthenes by about 20 years, i.e., who belonged to Alexander's hordes previous to Chandra-goopta Maurya's establishment of the empire and expulsion of Seleukos the Greco-Syrian from Afghanistan (B. C. 303), was a land of republics and commonwealths, used to assemblies or senates, and leaders or presidents. In the estimation of the Greek soldiers, Patala, for instance, was the Sparta of the Hindus. It was a famous city at the apex of the delta of the Indus. In this community, as Diodorus tells us, "the command in war was vested in two hereditary kings of two different houses, while a council of elders ruled the whole state with paramount authority." $11$

Large indeed in Alexander's days was the number of democratically governed peoples, with the institutions of sva-rāj or self-rule though sometimes of the oligrachicoligarchic [sic] character. One of the most important of these nations was the Arāttas (Arāshtrakas, i.e., kingless) with their kinsmen, the Kathians. Justin calls them robbers and they are condemned as such in the Mahābhārata also. But they proved to be a powerful military aid to Chandra-goopta in his successful wars against the Macedonians and the Greco-Syrians. It was the splendid assistance rendered by the Arāttas $12$  that to a great extent enabled the Hindu commoner to easily clear the Indian borderland of the melchchhamlechchha [sic] (unclean, barbarian) Europeans and push the north-western limits of his empire to the "scientific frontier", the Hindukush Mountains.

Two other nationalities that have a pan-Indian reputation as having figured in the army of the Kooroos in the armageddon of the Mahābhārata happened to strike the imagination of the Greeks in an interesting way. These were the Mallois (Mālavas) and the Oxydrakai (Kshoodrakas). $13$  The former are described by Arrian simply as "a race of independent Indians". But the latter are singled out by him as by far the most attached to freedom and autonomy. From the military standpoint, both were very powerful peoples. But like the Athenians and Spartans they had always been used to flying at each other's throats. Alexander, however, had to count on a formidable opposition from them. For, as it happened on this occasion, parallel in Hindu annals to the Persian invasion of Greece, the Mālavas and the Kshoodrakas "resolved to forget old enmities and to make common cause against the invader". The alliance was cemented, as Diodorus narrates, by "wholesale intermarriage, each giving and taking ten thousand young women for wives". The strength of the combined army was 90,000 fully equipped infantry, 10,000 cavalry, and about 900 chariots. $14$

Among the other republican nationalities of the time we know about the Sambastai $15$  (the Sabarcae?), on the statement of Diodorus, that they dwelt in cities with democratic form of administration, and about the Gedrosii (Gedrosioi $16$   ), on the report of Curtius, that they were a "free people with a council for discussing important matters of state". Another race is mentioned by Curtius, probably the Sabarcae (?) o f Diodorus, as a powerful Indian tribe whose "form of government was democratic and not regal". They had no king but were led by three generals. $17$  Their army consisted of 60,000 foot, 6,000 cavalry, and 500 chariots. $18$  Similarly the Oreitai, the Abastanoi, the Xathroi (the Kshatriya), and the Arabitai are four peoples whom Arrian calls "independent tribes with leaders". $19$  Of these the Kshatriyas were expert naval architects. They supplied Alexander with