State and Government in Ancient India c15.190

c15.190

Very often even powerful kings like Lalitāditya would leave standing instructions with their ministers that they should not execute their orders if they were unreasonable or given when they were not in their full senses; they would not fail to thank them for such disobedience.¹ Ministers on their part also were usually loyal to the king and also solicitous about the interest of the people. When king Jayāpīḍa had been imprisoned, one of his ministers committed suicide in order to enable the imprisoned king to escape by crossing the river over his bloated corpse.² In the Deccan we get many cases of ministers taking the vow to die with their kings and carrying it out when the occasion arose. Lakshama, a minister of Hoysala king Ballāla II, had taken this vow and when the king died, both he and his wife mounted a stone pillar and committed suicide by jumping down. Inscriptions from Karnāṭak refer to many such cases.⁴