Hindu Administrative Institutions c13.3

c13.3

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.