Hindu Administrative Institutions c7.s5.13

c7.s5.13

This is addressed to the *purohita* when the latter gives the warning in the same tone and language. The oath is different in different texts,² and suggests that this oath was not one peculiar to the *mahābhiṣeka* but applicable to the ordinary consecrations also. After all this is akin to the *sārvamedha* sacrifice of the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*. He alone is entitled to this who has attained pre-eminence and suzerainty over the other rulers. The existence of an emperor does not necessarily mean the entire absence of other kings in smaller status and position. Thus in the *Aitareya* or for the matter of that in all the *Brāhmaṇas* we find mention of a number of kings ruling over different quarters. But everybody is not proclaimed as the emperor or suzerain. What we wish to establish is the fact that the various titles occurring in these texts bear their own significance; and to make any other assumption is to ignore a *de facto* tradition. The texts are clear with regard to the different titles. It is quite possible that side by side with an emperor there could be overlords and even kings as well in his empire who could have been subordinate to him. They might represent to an extent the great earldoms, created by Cnut, the best of Danish and English kings, over which he appointed great earls, himself being in charge of a separate earldom. On this account we cannot say that Cnut was only an overlord of Wessex and not a king of other earldoms like Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia. Probably there prevailed similar political conditions in India in the period of the *Brāhmaṇas*. There were dependent and independent rulers, and a great emperor would, by his mighty conquests, bring the independent kings to a stage of dependence. Such an all-powerful monarch alone seems to have been entitled to the *sārvamedha* and the *mahābhiṣeka*. Weighing then the names of many a monarch cited in the *Aitareya* in the impartial and unprejudiced balance of our minds, it is just possible to affirm that not only was there a conception of an empire but an actual empire in working. The *Aitareya* mentions the tribes of the Dakhan such as the Andhras which is a clear indication that the redactor of the text knew all India from the Himalayas to the very south. Again according to the Rāmāyaṇa, Rāma was the emperor of all India including Ceylon by his extensive conquests. Duryodhana and Yudhiṣṭhira were conversant with all India. Thus in the history of ancient India, now and then shoots forth an emperor to whom all the chieftains of small and big states acknowledge allegiance as their overlord.