Modern Review March 1937

The religious institution of the sacrifice developed at the same time a class of priests and inspired singers men trained in the ritual or in possession of the mystic knowledge which lay behind the symbols of the sacrifice the seed of the great Brahminic institution. [...] The predominance from early times of the religious and spiritual tendency in the mind of the Indian people brought about at the top of the social system the growth of the Brahmin order priests scholars legists repositories of the sacred lore of the Vedas a development paralleled elsewhere but here given an unequalled permnence and definiteness and supreme importance. [...] It is unfortunate that we know little of the details of the constitution and nothing of the inner history of these Indian republics but the evidence is clear of the high reputation they enjoyed throughout India for the excellence of their civil and the formidable efficiency of their military organization. [...] But Indian monarchy previous to the Mahomedan invasion was not in spite of a certain sanctity and great authority conceded to the regal position and the personality of the king as the representative of the divine Power and the guardian of the Dharma in any way a personal despotism or an absolutist autocracy : it had no resemblance to the ancient Persian monarchy or the monarchies of western and [...] His right of taxation was limited in the most important sources of revenue to a fixed percentage as a maximum and in other directions often by the right of the bodies representing the various elements of the community to a voice in the matter and always by the general rule that his right to govern was subject to the satisfaction and goodwill! of the people.