Hindu Administrative Institutions c7.s2.t2.57

c7.s2.t2.57

all examine the financial aspects of Hindu adminis- in a subsequent chapter where we shall answer estion whether the ancient financial practices rannous. But what we are concerned with at pre- the two assertions of the learned scholar, namely, e Indian state was an autocraey; and that the idea iotism was wholly non-existent. Our legal and *śāstra* literature furnish various checks and balances imposed upon the central government of the country. In spite of them if a king would have recourse to high-handed measures, open revolt, deposition, and choice of another king were weapons ready to hand to fight a refractory monarch with. Under these circumstances he could not conduct himself as an autocrat in any manner. Despotic monarchs have ruled in all countries and the history of the world furnishes many a name of despotic kings. Notwithstanding the growth of political consciousness for centuries in European countries we cannot say we have got rid of autocracy completely. It might be now and then, that one monarch or another was despotic or autocratic. But such despotism or autocracy did not go unnoticed. Manu says explicitly, ' That foolish monarch who is arbitrary and tyrannous is soon got rid of and loses his life with that of all his relations. A king loses his life through the torturing of the kingdom as the life of an ordinary human being is ruined through torture of the physical body.'¹ Chandragupta, the first Maurya king, is characterized by historians as a despotic emperor with no evidence whatsoever.