________________
SECTION IV. KINGSHIP.
We have endeavoured to give in outline the story of the political vicissitudes through which Northern India and a considerable portion of the Deccan passed from the accession of Parikshit to the coronation of Bimbisāra. We shall now attempt a brief survey of some of the institutions of the age without which no political history. is complete. We have seen that during the major part of the period under review the prevailing form of government was monarchical. The later Vedic texts and auxiliary treatises give us a few details about the rank and power of the rulers in the different parts of India, their social status, the methods of their selection and consecration, the chief members of their household, the civil and military services, the limitations of royal authority and popular participation in affairs of the state. Even when all scraps of information are pieced together, the picture is dim. The facts gleaned from Vedic sources which alone can, with confidence, be referred to the period before 500 B.C. have to be elucidated or supple-. mented by post-Vedic data embodying traditions about the heroic age that preceded the rise and growth of the Magadhan Empire.
The various kinds of rulership prevalent in different parts of India are thus described in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa ::
"Etasyāi Prūchyāṁ diśi, ye ke cha Prūchyānām rājānah Sāmrājyāyaiva te'bhishichyante Samrāt-ityenanabhishistānāchakshata etāmeva Devānāṁ vihitimanu.
1 VIII. 14.
