History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c40.4

v3.c40.4

1. One may first again mention the absence of the feeling of nationality in the people of all these states. We have already said that in India at this time, as elsewhere in Asia, there were kingdoms but no peopledoms. The people did not feel that the state was theirs and the king ought also to be theirs. The country belonged to the king and any one might be king whom God chose. Under this view of the state, the sentiment of nationality cannot arise, nor, as stated in Vol. II (p. 220) and Vol. I (p. 123), the virtue of patriotism. There was the sentiment of loyalty, no doubt, and you find in the Prithvīrāj Rāsā that sentiment appealed to everywhere. To die for the master was the highest dharma of the Rajput soldier. But when that master failed and another master was substituted by the will of God, the soldier was ready to die for him also. Thus we find even Kshatriya soldiers dying for Mahomedan kings and masters. This was doubly true of the common people who were not Rajputs i. e. of the caste whose duty it was to rule.