{"id":671,"date":"2007-10-26T02:37:36","date_gmt":"2007-10-26T06:37:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=671"},"modified":"2018-08-16T03:05:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T07:05:00","slug":"15420-%c2%a0%c2%a0-g-p-singh-republics-kingdoms-towns-and-cities-in-ancient-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=671","title":{"rendered":"15420.&nbsp;(G. P. Singh) Republics, Kingdoms, Towns and Cities in Ancient India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The above three titles are essen\u00adtial read\u00ading for any\u00adone inter\u00adested in the his\u00adtory of democ\u00adracy. When Steve Muhlberg\u00ader and I wrote <em>Democracy\u2019s Place In World His\u00adtory<\/em>, Majum\u00addar (writ\u00adten in 1918) and Altekar (writ\u00adten in 1949) were impor\u00adtant sources for us. The first book alert\u00aded us to the sig\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcance of the ancient Indi\u00adan republics, which had become an unfash\u00adion\u00adable area of study, and were lit\u00adtle known to his\u00adto\u00adri\u00adans out\u00adside India. The sec\u00adond pro\u00advided a seri\u00adous analy\u00adsis of them, and demon\u00adstrated con\u00adclu\u00adsively that they had to be tak\u00aden just as seri\u00adously as the polit\u00adi\u00adcal insti\u00adtu\u00adtions of ancient Athens. Ancient India was home to many hun\u00addreds of city-states, ter\u00adri\u00adto\u00adr\u00adial states, leagues, and con\u00adfed\u00adera\u00adcies, and many of these were demo\u00adc\u00adra\u00adtic, or pro\u00adto-demo\u00adc\u00adra\u00adt\u00adic, in the same sense as the poli\u00adties of Greece. They involved far greater pop\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtions, were con\u00adtem\u00adpo\u00adrary with the Greeks, out\u00adlasted them, and prob\u00ada\u00adbly pre\u00adceded them. Greek trav\u00adel\u00aders had no dif\u00adfi\u00adculty see\u00ading their close resem\u00adblance to their&nbsp;own.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It has been very grat\u00adi\u00adfy\u00ading to see that our lit\u00adtle essay has con\u00adtributed to a renewed inter\u00adest in this sub\u00adject. G.P. Singh\u2019s 2003 book is an exam\u00adple of the renew\u00adal of schol\u00adarly atten\u00adtion. It\u2019s a com\u00adpre\u00adhen\u00adsive sur\u00advey of the exist\u00ading doc\u00adu\u00admen\u00adtary evi\u00addence, with some\u00adthing on every loca\u00adtion that can be con\u00adnected to pro\u00adto-demo\u00adc\u00adra\u00adt\u00adic, oligrachic, or con\u00adcil\u00adiar insti\u00adtu\u00adtions. This back\u00adground knowl\u00adedge is essen\u00adtial if any analy\u00adsis is to take place, and Singh pro\u00advides up-to-date infor\u00adma\u00adtion on these sources. It by no means replaces Altekar\u2019s <em>State and Gov\u00adern\u00adment in Ancient India<\/em>, which attempts more analy\u00adsis and inter\u00adpre\u00adta\u00adtion of the data. Altekar\u2019s analy\u00adsis, in my opin\u00adion, usu\u00adally hits the mark. His recon\u00adstruc\u00adtion rings&nbsp;true.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Anoth\u00ader book that was an impor\u00adtant source for us was J.P. Sharma\u2019s <em>Republics in Ancient India c. <\/em><em><span class=\"caps\">1500BC-500BC<\/span><\/em>, but I haven\u2019t reread it (I intend to). So if you have any inter\u00adest in the republics of ancient India, start with these four&nbsp;books.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The above three titles are essen\u00adtial read\u00ading for any\u00adone inter\u00adested in the his\u00adtory of democ\u00adracy. When Steve Muhlberg\u00ader and I wrote Democracy\u2019s Place In World His\u00adtory, Majum\u00addar (writ\u00adten in 1918) and Altekar (writ\u00adten in 1949) were impor\u00adtant sources for&nbsp;us.&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=671\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bt-reading-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=671"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8846,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671\/revisions\/8846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}