Bhante,

thank you. Neither was the Buddha a republican. ;-)

Actually, I am fairly interested in the kind of topics you discussed, not what I would hear in general public talks. Which is why I am interested in private research and study.

The unique points as I understand are:

1. the Sangha is (or is supposed to be) a democratic-style assembly.
2. there are political entities during Buddha's times which were republics, but built upon a deeply-rooted caste system, i.e. having a ruling caste.

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com, ashinpan wrote:

So throughout my lecture, I argued that the Buddha was not a democrat as popularly conceived.