Hindu Administrative Institutions c6.s4.47

c6.s4.47

Any observant student of the history of ancient India, and, for the matter of that, modern India up to the close of the last century, will testify to the elements of permanence and orderly movement as the sustaining principles of Hindu society as compared with the restlessness of western society and its perpetual want of equilibrium. The two characteristic features that mark modern society are the struggle for existence and an unhealthy competition. But it was economic democracy that distinguished ancient society from the modern. To preserve caste life and orders whose value has been recognized by such well-meaning friends like Sir Henry Cotton and Sir George Birdwood, the *Rajadharma* acted as the check and the goad. In the absence of the *kṣatriya-dharma* it is said that all science and all the *dharmas* of caste and orders become ruined.¹ This excellent idea is also expressed with the same vigor and force in the Tamil classic, the *Kural*.²