The Colas c12.24

c12.24

Nothing can furnish more striking evidence of the great gulf that separated royalty from common humanity than the awe with which the power of the king for good and for ill was contemplated. In theory, he was not merely, nor even primarily, the guardian of the people from physical danger, internal and external, but he was the custodian of the Universal Order. On his right rule rested the penance of the sage, the purity of the wife, ²⁵ nay the very course of the seasons. The *Kuraḷ* affirms: ²⁶