State and Government in Ancient India c9.22

c9.22

A survey of the above passages shows that whatever may be the state of affairs in the mythical past, Hindu thinkers held that State was an indispensable institution for the orderly existence and progress of society in the imperfect world as known to us in historic times; a country without government cannot even exist.¹ The idea of a primeval Golden Age is accepted only in some sections of the *Mahābhārata* and Buddhist literature. Writers on polity only toy with it for some time and hasten to point out that it was soon succeeded by a social chaos, which was terminated only when God gave a king to society. They thus regarded State as a divine institution, implying thereby that it is as old as society and owed its origin to that socio-political instinct which is twin-born with man.