Hindu Administrative Institutions c7.s2.23

c7.s2.23

tion of the power of the king was, unlike the divine right of the Stuarts, the divinely ordained duty to afford protection to his subjects.¹ Pramathanath Banerjee thinks that only a righteous monarch was regarded as divine,² and notes that the king was not a *devata* but only a *naradevata* and seems to base his conclusion on the authority of Śukrāchārya who says that an unrighteous monarch is a demon.³ But Dr. Ghosal cites the concluding verse of chap. lviii of *Śanti Parvan*, and argues that the king is equal (*tulya*) to a *devata* and not a mere *naradevata*,⁴ adding the remark that Śukra’s theory is peculiar to him and not shared by other Hindu writers. This remark implies that Śukra develops a polity of his own, or rather breaks away from the long continued Hindu tradition. Śukrāchārya has not sacrificed tradition in the least; on the other hand he has greatly amplified the political philosophy of his time. A king is after all a man, an ordinary human being. It is the ceremony of consecration which invests him with sovereign powers and duties, and so long as he maintains this position by the observance of rules laid down he is entitled to respect as a *devata*. He is not, therefore, *devata* in essence, but a *nara-devata*. He is *devata* in the sense that he awards *abhaya* to his subjects, the nature of this *abhaya* being protection from internal and