State and Government in Ancient India c12.s8.17

c12.s8.17

There is certainly a great force in the above line of argument. A less extreme but more practical remedy should have been devised against the tendency of the king's powers becoming oppressive. We should, howexer, note that in the ancient times it was not so difficult to dethrone or execute a tyrant, as it is in modern days; Jātakas often describe the people doing so with success¹ We should not forget that in olden days, on the one hand regularly paid and trained standing armies did not usually exist, and on the other hand, villages and towns had their own militias under popular control and armed with weapons in no way inferior to those of the king's army. The possibility of a successful rebellion was, therefore, not a remote one. The country was studded with a number of feudatories and sub-feudatories, and it was not difficult for people to find a leader from among them or from among ministers and high officials to put an end to tyranny. The last rulers of the Maurya and the Śuṅga dynasties and king Govinda IV of the Rāshtrakūṭa house, for instance, lost their thrones because their misrule drove people, ministers and feudatories to rebel against them. People's right to rebel and invite a more virtuous ruler to the throne was a much more feasible and practicable right in ancient times than we can think it to be in the modern age, when governments are armed with tanks, aeroplane and atomic bombs and the subjects have to oppose them by fists, knives, and *lathis*.