Most Ancient Aryan Society

Author(s): Ram Chandra Jain
Publisher: Institute of Bharatalogical Research Sriganganagar Rajasthan

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( 17 ) The election or selection of the official was conditioned by the moral virtues of the incumbant of the office.
The ideal official was 'the silent man', who Leader of the is respectful of established authority and Land.
just, since Maat (which means truth, justice, rightness) is part of that world order of which his royal master is the champion. The 'silent man' is not the meek sufferer, but the wise, self-possessed, well-adapted man, modest and self-effacing upto a point but deliberate and firm in the awareness that he is thoroughly in harmony with the world in which he lives". Pharaoh, the supreme leader of the people, possessed these qualities almost to a point of perfection. He was the best and the noblest servant of the people. Men of high moral fibre, possessing great intellectual and spiritual qualities, self-effacing, having little material possessions occupied high public offices with no hereditary rights. This ancient type of republican society flourished till twenty-second century B.C.
This republican type was more pronounced in Sumer. Political authority seems originally to have rested with the
citizens ; sovereign power and the city god Republican Sys- lay in an assembly guided by a group of tem in Sumer
elders. Since the terms for 'assembly' and 'elders' occur already in the Protoliterate tablets”; these political republican institutions appear to have endured for a fairly long period. These republican political institutions represent in the highest degree the intensified self-consciousness and self-assertion. They were man-made institutions overriding kinship relationship and asserting territorial affinities. Local autonomy was the rule of the land. The assembly was very conscious of its duties towards the people and it continued deliberations till practical unanimity was reached. The executive head in Sumer was called