or village communities 32 Even a despot like Ranjit Singh, Maine concludes dare not issue a command which would compel an unwilling people to change their deep-rooted habits and customs. If he does it, he will confront the risk of revolution. Ranjit Singh's laws were primarily derived from customs, usages and religious injunctions and they were administered by the village panchayats (councils). But it is not only in regard to oriental society" that Maine finds Austin's analysis inadequate. In the "world of western civilisation," he says, no soy elelgh, however despptla, could disregard "the entire history of the community, the mass of its historic antecedents, which in each community determines how the sovereign shall exercise or forbearifrom exercising, his irresistible coercive power." Austin's conception of a detetminate sovereign is, also inconsistent with the well-accepted ideas of political and popular sovereignty. It ignores the power of public opinidn and does Hot take into consideration the existence of political sovereignty, which is now believed as the ultimate sovereigr power in a State. Sir Henry Maine, accordingly, con cludes that it is a historical fact that the sovereign has never been determinate.conception of the sovereign power. Ranjit Singh, Maine says, "coul have commanded anything; the smallest disobedience to his commands would have been followed by death or mutilation s 331 et, Ranjit Singh never "on in all his life'' issued a command which Austin could call a law. "The rules which regulated the life of his subjects were derived from their immemorial usages, and these rules were administered by domestic tribunals, in familin