State and Government in Ancient India c12.s2.10

c12.s2.10

There is thus no doubt that monarchy had become normally hereditary long before the later Vedic period. The arguments advanced to show that it continued to be elective in some states down to even the 8th century A. D. are hardly convincing.⁴ The *rājakṛits* mentioned in the *Atharvaveda* (III. 6. 7) and *rāja-* *kartāraḥ* referred to in the *Rāmāyaṇa* (II. 67. 2) are not king-electors but the Brāhmaṇas, who were entrusted with the duty of offering the coronation ablutions to the king.¹ When kings Pratīpa and Yayati offer the crown to their younger sons Śantanu and Puru respectively, setting aside the claims of the elder brothers, people assemble before the palace and call for an explanation. This does not, however, lend any support to the view that they had a voice in the selection of their king. In each case they simply want to know why the claims of the eldest son, supported by the law of primogeniture, have been set aside, and they return home quite satisfied when a proper explanation is offered by the reigning king.² Both the incidents clearly show, not that the people had any voice in the election of the king, but that they had accepted primogeniture as the normal law for the succession to the throne. The chapters in the *Rāmāyaṇa* referring to the proposed installation of Rāma to the post of the heir-apparent (II. 1.2) do not also lend colour to the view that people had any voice in the matter. Daśaratha had summoned for the occasion not the notable citizens of his kingdom but his important feudatories and neighbouring monarchs.³ They approved of the choice of Rāma as a mere formality ; that their consent had no practical value would become quite clear from the circumstance that it could not prevent the banishment of Rāma to the forest. The genealogy of the Ikshvāku family shows that for several generations both before and after the reign of Rāma, the crown was passing hereditarily and that people had no power to elect the king.