State and Government in Ancient India c12.s4.8

c12.s4.8

Divinity has been definitely claimed for the king by some Smṛitis and Purāṇas. Manu avers that the king is verily a great divinity in the human form; his very body is formed by the Creator by taking particles from the bodies of the divine guardians of the eight quarters.¹ The *Vishṇupurṇa*² and the *Bhāgavata* say that a number of divinities reside in the person of the king; the latter goes to the extent of averring that Veṇa, the first king, had actually some of the marks of Vishṇu on the different limbs of his body.³ The convention of regarding the king as divine has become quite general; even the Buddhists in later times regarded the kings as *sammutidevas* (gods by convention or public opinion). Sanskrit dramatists use the word *deva*, when a king is to be addressed, and the efforts of the medieval dynasties to trace their origin to gods Brahmā, Rāma or Lakshmaṇa also presuppose a desire to emphasise their divine origin and character.