Hindu Administrative Institutions c6.s2.23

c6.s2.23

This institution can be traced in Vedic literature wherein are found many references to monarchical forms of government, where the king could do wrong and where he was under the control of the people or law. Law was above the king and it was eternal (*sanātana*). But this characteristic of law must be understood in a qualified sense; for though law remains the same in principle, still a gradual evolution in practical application, according to the changing needs of the times, worked itself out. *Śiṣṭācāra* (the practice of the learned) warranted such an alteration, which the needs of the time actually brought about. The law was purely customary and hence the state had little to do with legislation. What the remarkable historian Grote said of Zeus would equally apply to our ancient Indian King, ‘He was not a lawmaker but a Judge.’ Thus was introduced a form of constitutional monarchy with healthy limitations which had a telling effect on the constitution, first, by upholding the rights of the people (which is democracy), and secondly, by enforcing duties on the authority, that is the monarch. Thus it was a mixed constitution in which both the democratic and monarchic principles found recognition, and in which both were interdependent.