232 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [N.S., XV, 
“ the earliest Vedic accounts always represent thera as consist- 
“ing of differently named tribes and as having divisions and 
“ subdivisions of tribes and clans each headed by its appropriate 
“grade of chief. Over the whole there is a Raja but very 
“ different from the autocratic ruler of later times and evidently 
“not independent of some great popular assembly over which 
‘the king presides rather however as primus inter pares.” 
‘ow if we compare this early Aryan system with the same 
author’s description of some of the non-Aryan tribal organi- 
zations there is little difference between the two. Thus 
of the Boro Kingdom of Assam he writes (op. cit., pp. 135-6 and 
footnote) that “ the country was, as so often observed, divided 
“into districts or areas probably connected with the clan divi- 
“in many cases have no cohesion and no centralized control, 
“so that in the course of time they fall under the dominion of 
‘‘dians and its claim to be pre-Aryan in point of origin, it is 
“ evident that from the earliest times a division of the country— 
muttha territory contains a number of hamlets or villages. 
61. It is, I think, evident from these descriptions that 
there could at any rate be no antagonism between the Aryan 
system of Vedic times and the non-Aryan system of Assam 
and Chhota Nagpur. It would, for example, be almost as 
easy to argue that the organization of Chhattisgarh was derived 
from the one as from the other. I conclude, therefore, that it 
tat va. 
a 
country were still themselves sufficiently in the tribal 
stage to recognize and retain the indigenous territorial system. 
But, in their own case, being at a more advanced stage o 
