ABSTRACT
The hymns of the Rgveda frequently relate to three different types of corporate bodies, vidatha, sabha and samiti with varying degrees of power and functions in relation to the royal administration. An important feature of the old Vedic political system was the religious authentication of political power which inevitably gave rise to the doctrine of the divine right of kingship. Sanctification of political power already presupposes a binary division of the social group in which one section wielded political power but depended on another for religious sanctification of power. The Brahmana texts which outlined the paraphernalia of the Rajasuya sacrifice are a kind of political document and the rituals elaborated therein are political statements of a prescriptive or mandatory nature depending on the nature of rapport between the king and the chief priest. The Rajasuya on the other hand, related to the consolidation of the state administration through a bonding of different organs of the government to the king.
