India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s1.44

c12.s1.44

*IDEALS OF ADMINISTRATION*—The ideal of the State was good government (*saurājya*). Good government means state under a king (*rājā*), after whom it was called *rājanvān* (*Rājanvān saurājye*, VIII.2.14). This points to the theory advocated both in Kauṭilya and in the *Jātakas*, according to which the institution of kingship emerged out of the people’s desire to escape from the miseries attendant on 'no government' (the state of *mātsya-nyāya*). The people decided to elect a king, and thus making themselves *rājanvān* they realised the condition of peaceful society. The evils of kingless society *arājaka rāshṭra* are described in the epics (cf. Ayodhyākāṇḍa, ch. 67; Sāntiparva, ch. 68).