State and Government in Ancient India c12.s4.3

c12.s4.3

The growing sway of religious ideas and notions produced an atmosphere in the Brāhmaṇa period which was more favourable to the notion of the divinity of the king. Victories of the king began to be attributed to the favour of Indra, and very often the latter's epithet began to be transferred to the former.² At the time of the royal coronation the priest averred that it was at the command of god Savitar that the coronation ablution was being given, and that too, not with his human hands and arms, but with the hands of god Pūshan and the arms of god Aśvins. Gods Agni, Savitar and Bṛihaspati were believed to enter the person of the king, when he was being annointed at the coronation. Some of the sacrifices he performed like the Aśvamedha and the Vājapeya were declared to enable him to obtain parity with gods¹ The mystery of the multitude obeying one king was sought to be explained by some on the ground that he was the veritable visible symbol of Prajāpati, the chief of gods.² Brāhmaṇas were claiming divinity (*bhūdevatva*) for themselves and were, therefore, not disposed to deny it to the king, who was expected to uphold their privileges. The political thinkers began to advocate that the age of anarchy came to an end, when at the request of the suffering humanity, the Creator made a Code of Law and appointed a king to administer it. This view about the origin of the state conceded a quasi-divinity to the king. The *Mahābhārata* states the god Vishṇu himself entered into the body of the first king (XII. 39. 128). It further maintains that if a person despises a king, his penance and sacrifices will bear no fruits. All these circumstances and factors created an atmosphere during the post-Vedic period, which was very favourable to the doctrine of the divinity of the king. The advent of the Kushāṇa dynasty in the 1st century A. D. further strengthened the tendency to regard the king as divine. Owing to the influence of the Chinese tradition, kings of this house claimed to be the sons of gods (*devaputra*) and represented themselves on their coins as descending from clouds and surrounded by divine flames.³ Temples were also built by the Kushāṇa emperors in honour of their dead predecessors whose statues were worshipped there as gods or demigods.