corners or sides of the hall so as to clearly and easily hear the speeches made by the s; and the consul took his appointed seat and put forward the matters to be discussed once the Assembly was ready. During the session, the members of the Assembly expressed their views, which the four s would record. The Assembly was then adjourned, after which the recorders compared their notes, and all the s came back and waited for the recorders' decision. Class society The society of the Shakyas and Koliyas was a stratified one within which were present at least the aristocratic, land-owning, attendant, labourer, and serf classes. Landholders held the title of s, literally meaning "enjoyers (of the right to own land)," and used in the sense of "headmen." The lower classes of Shakya society consisted of servants, in Pāli called s () and s (), who performed the labour in the farms. Culture Non-Vedic The Shakyas lived in what scholars presently call the Greater Magadha cultural area, which was located in the eastern Gangetic plain to the east of the confluence of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā rivers. Like the other eastern groups of the Greater Magadha region, the Shakyas were ("of mixed origin"), and therefore did not subscribe to the social organisation consisting of s, s, s, and s; non-Indo-Aryan indigenous clans were instead given the status of s, that is of slaves or servants, while the Indo-Aryan clans and the indigenous clans who collaborated with them held the status of s. Thus, the populations of Greater Magadha did not subscribe to the supremacy of the s of the peoples of , and s were instead the highest class in the societies of Greater Magadha. Vedic literature therefore considered the populations of Greater Magadha as existing outside of the limits of , with the grouping the Vaidehas, Māgadhīs, Licchavikas, and Mallakas, who were the neighbours of the Shakyas, as being "non-Aryan" and born from mixed caste marriages, and the s requiring visitors to these lands to perform purificatory sacrifices as expiation. This negative view of the peoples of the Greater Magadha region by the Vedic peoples extended to the Shakyas, as recorded in the , according to which the s described the Shakyas as "fierce, rough-spoken, touchy and violent," and accused them of not honouring, respecting, esteeming, revering or paying homage to the s owing to their "menial origin."