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THE LICCHAVIS
323 with regard to his proposed extermination of the Vrjis, the Buddha said to Ananda, 'So long, Ananda, as the Vajjians hold these full and frequent public assemblies; so long may they be expected not to decline but to prosper'.1
The public hall where the Licchavis used to hold their meetings was called the Santhāgāra, and there they discussed both religion and politics. We have seen in the story of the conversion of Sīha that the Licchavis met at the Santhāgāra to discuss the teaching of the Buddha. The procedure that was followed in these assemblies may be gathered, as D. R. Bhandarkar 2 has pointed out, from an account of the procedure followed at a ceremony of ordination in the samgha of the Buddhist Bhikkhus. There can be no doubt that in organising the Buddhist samgha, the Buddha took as his model the political samghas of N.E. India, especially that of the Licchavis whose corporation, as we have seen, he esteemed very highly. Fortunately for us, the rules of procedure followed in the Buddhist community or samgha have been preserved in the description of the upasampadā or ordination ceremony in the Pātimokkha section of the Vinaya Pițaka, and from this description we can form an idea of the procedure followed in the political samgha of the Licchavis. First of all, an officer called the Asanapaññāpaka (regulator of seats) was elected, whose function seems to have been to seat the members of the congregation in order of seniority. As in the Buddhist congregation, so among the Licchavis, the elders of the clans were highly respected, as we see from the Mahāparinibbāna Suttanta.*
The form of moving a Resolution in the council thus assembled and seated may be gathered from the full description of procedure in the Buddhist samgha, for which see Rhys Davids and Oldenberg, Vinaya Texts, Pt. I, pp. 169-70.
As might be expected in such an assembly, there were often violent disputes and quarrels with regard to controversial topics. In such cases, the disputes were settled by the votes of the majority and this voting was by ballot; voting tickets or salākās were served out to the voters, and an officer of approved honesty and impartiality was elected to collect these tickets or voting papers. The appointment of this officer, who was called the Salākā-gāhāpaka, was also made by the whole assembly.
1 Buddhist Suttas, S.B.E., Vol. XI, p. 3. 2 Carmichael Lectures, 1918, p. 181. 3 Vinaya Texts, S.B.E., Vol. XX, p. 408, f.n. 4 Buddhist Suttas, S.B.E., Vol. XI, p. 3. 5 Cullavagga, S.B.E., Vol. XX; Vinaya Texts, Pt. III, p. 25.
