Hindu Administrative Institutions c13: Chapter VIII. Conclusion
Hindu Administrative Institutions c13
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Chapter VIII. Conclusion
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In the foregoing pages of this little volume an endeavour has been made to give a brief survey of a polity, almost modern in character, having an uninterrupted course of existence for some thousands of years. History records many a polity in different countries of the ancient world. Egypt, Greece, Rome, Babylon, China and other countries have had their own day and contributed not a little to the sum total of the world's culture and progress. Though every nation evolved its own polity, no polity had the inherent vitality that Hindu polity possessed, and this feature enabled the latter to continue to live unhampered by ravages of time.
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In our short study of a great subject,—complex in its very nature through lack of materials to reconstruct it on a secure basis,—we have tried to trace the political and constitutional evolution of Hindu India from earliest times known to history. There is numismatic evidence, according to Sir Alexander Cunningham, of a dated history to about 1000 B.C. Literary evidence pushes this date further by several millenniums. The recent discoveries of the Archæological Department at Harappa and Mohenjodaro, are sure to revolutionize the history of our chronology. In such uncertain field we shall not venture until we feel confident we are on firm ground. From the available pieces of evidence a long lease of life, longer than that of any polity in the world including Babylon, may be given to Hindu polity. From the simple tribal system of the Vedic times when the king was the administrator of justice and leader in war, we have an unbroken tradition which is one and the same, apart from the variations due perhaps to changing conditions and altered circumstances of the land. The king was regarded as much a citizen as any other. Obedience was shown to him because he directed and regulated the affairs of all other citizens so that the latter might live in peace and security. This concept of the Vedic texts was promulgated by the theory of *Yogakshema* in the epic, Purāṇic and Arthaśāstra literature of much later times. Thus the polity that was allowed to develop, and develop perhaps on rationalistic lines was civil in character. The end of the state, namely, the moral and material welfare of the citizens at large, could not be realized in a polity which made militarism as the essential feature. No doubt wars were fought and territories were conquered. The object was to bring the whole country under one man's sceptre. The laws of war are only a code of honour very skilfully incorporated into the body of the civil law, so that militarism may not show itself in all its nakedness.
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From the head of a family the primitive Hindu became the chief of a tribe and soon the leader of a small state. This began to grow in extent and with that the office of the monarchy and the dignity of the institution. In the epoch of the *Brāhmaṇas* we find *mahārājas*, or great kings, *adhirājas* and *sārvabhaumas*, titles superior to that of *mahārāja*. The *sārvabhauma* is the overlord of the whole land known to them at that time. Thus in the period of the *Brāhmaṇas*, the idea of an empire had come to stay. Nanda Vardhana establishes an empire in Magadha about the fifth century before the Christian era. What we now understand by the centralized form of administration, takes root, to shoot forth into a tree with fruits and flowers. But the principle of centralization was foreign to the Hindu tradition, and consequently it had a short lease of life. Under the Mauryas to a small extent and possibly under the Guptas, the principle of decentralization gained currency with the result the emperors of these epochs recognized rightly the existence of small states, dependent or independent, free or unfree. Thus force of circumstances continued to bring transformation in the forms of the constitution.
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The tendency was for small states to assert their independence and hence their individuality grew and grew after the empire of Harṣa with the consequence that the whole country was parcelled out in different tiny states, each by itself weak to resist the powerful invader. This lack of unity among themselves gave a sure opening to the invading chieftain, and the result was the decay of Hindu culture. It decayed but did not die. The Rajputs, the Maharattas, the Sikhs attempted to revive the age-long institutions but with no success. But success is yet to be. We conclude with Jayaswal: ‘The constitutional progress made by the Hindu has probably not been equalled, much less surpassed by any polity of antiquity. The great privilege of the Hindu at the same time is that he is not yet a fossil: he is still living with a determination which a great historian (Duncker) has characterized as a tenacity which bends but does not break. The Golden Age of his polity lies not in the Past but in the Future.’¹
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¹ Hindu Polity, part ii, p. 209.