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ORGANISATION OF REPUBLICS 195 part of the constitution. The efficient part comprised a president (chief gaṇapati, ganajyestha, ganarāja, samghamukhya) and a council of archons taken from the ruling class. Such a president was Chetaka of Vaišāli and Akouphis of Nysa in later times, the terrestrial counterpart of Indra, in his capacity as the Jyeshtha of the Marud-gana.” According to a Jaina tradition the number of members of the supreme executive in charge of foreign and military affairs was in some states nine 3 There were functionaries like uparājās and senāpatis who exercised judicial and military functions. All these Elders possibly answer to the Mahallakas of Pāli texts and Mahattaras of the Vayu Purāna,+ whom it was the duty of the citizens to respect and support.
Some of the clans had an elaborate system of judicial procedure with a gradation of officers. Others, notably the Koliyas, had a police force which earned notoriety for extortion and violence. Reverence for tradition, especially for traditional religion with its shrines and ministers, was a feature that recalls the part that ancestral religion played in ancient Babylonia and modern Nippon.
Perhaps the most important institution of the free republics was the Parishā, the popular assembly, where young and old held frequent, meetings, made their decisions and carried them out in concord. Kettledrums 6 were used by an officer (styled sabhāpāla in the epic) to
1 CE, the case of Ugrasena among the Yādavas. 2 Rig-veda I. 23. 8 ; cf. II. 23. 1.
3 Nava Mallai, Nava Lechchhai etc. supra p. 125. In Nysa the governing body consisted of 300 members. The number of "leading men of cities and provinces" entrusted by the Kshudrakas with power to conclude a treaty is not definitely stated.
4 Vayu. 96.35.
5 DPPN. I. 690. 16 Kindred Sayings. II. 178 (reference to keftledrum of the Dasārhas; cf. Mbh., I. 220. 11.
