Page:The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus.pdf/179

Rh this republic was carried out in a public assembly, the Senate. The civic center of Kapila-vastu, the capital, as that of other cities, of the nation, was the santhâgâra or the mote-hall. The young and old alike took part in the deliberations as to the government of the country. The chief was elected by the people. He used to preside over the sessions as chief judge. The title of the president was râjâ (literally, king). It corresponded in reality to the consul in Rome and the archon in Athens. And if the emissaries that Pyrrhus of Epirus sent to republican Rome (B.C. 280) could not describe the Roman Senate except as an “assembly of kings” there was nothing specifically undemocratic in the honorific title of râjâ for the chief executive of a Hindu republic.

The republic of the Vajjians was a United States of ancient India. It was a federation formed by the union of eight nations that had formerly been distinct and independent of one another. Vesâli was the headquarters of this federal republic. The two most prominent of the members in this union were the Videhas and the Lichchhavis. The Videhas had once been citizens of a monarchical state, and their original territory covered 2300 miles. The Lichchhavis of a certain period used to elect a triumvirate of three archons to conduct their administration.

The Senate or general assembly of the Lichchhavis gaṇa appears to have been a very large body. In the stories of the Ekapanna Jâtaka and the Chulla-Kalinga Jâtaka, the conventional number of congressmen or senators, known usually as the râjâs, is given as 7707. Evidently the “young and old” are to be included in the huge membership of this folk-parliament. These râjâs were not only legislators, but seem to have been “viceroys” (vice-presidents?), generals and treasurers” as well. In other words, they were “given to argument and disputation” not only over the questions of custom or law, but also over those affecting the bureaucratic administration, national defense or peace and war, and public finance. All the interests of the state must have been publicly discussed by the central council of the republic. The cabinet of this mammoth assembly was however quite a manageable body. It consisted of nine gaṇa-râyâṇas (i.e., ministerial chiefs or kings) to rep-

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