Public Administration in Ancient India c7.6

c7.6

This imaginary picture of the ante-political condition of man and of the circumstances which necessitated a State organisation, appears to us as specially interesting when we remember that similar pictures have also been drawn by European thinkers of a later age.² Besides, this description of the birth of the State, fanciful as it is, embodies the belief which many people had, and still have, in the divine origin of the State. The State, according to this theory, is neither a voluntary association of men nor the natural result of the workings of human instinct and reason, but is a thing imposed upon human beings for their general good by a power superior to their own. It is “the immediate work of God.” Manu is another exponent of the belief in the divine origin of the State. He says, “When these creatures, being without a King, through fear dispersed in all directions, the Lord created a King for the protection of the whole creation.”¹ But the view of the less