The Colas c12.29

c12.29

The result of misrule then is not rebellion, but famine. Some of these ideas, though not in so clear-cut a form, are also the common stock of Sanskrit treatises on polity. These statements, doubtless, are by no means to be understood literally; they are only meant to emphasise the importance and the glory of a just rule: and are part of the armoury of maxims and exhortations intended for the guidance of kings and for the good of their subjects. But from this mystic conception of kingship, it is a far cry to the control of the royal power by popular representation and the power of the purse. The early Sanskritic political thinkers, like some Roman Catholic writers of the sixteenth century, justified tyrannicide under conditions. Tamil literature does not seem ever to sanction resistance to the king’s will.