Hindu Administrative Institutions c7.s7.55

c7.s7.55

According to Kāmandaka even women and drinking are allowed to a certain extent.³ Their combined evil-effects⁴ are indeed great, but not greater than hunting and gambling.⁵ But Kauṭalya takes a different view altogether. Anger is worse than *kāma* or lust, and gambling is worse than hunting owing to loss of wealth and other defects. But sensuous lust is a worse evil, worse than gambling. In the latter attention can be directed which is not possible in *kāma*. Drinking is the worst evil. For loss of money, lunacy, absence of the sense of shame, loss of learning and friends, suffering from diseases of all sorts are its evil consequences.⁶ Possessing such qualities and subject to such responsibilities the institution of kingship in modern political parlance should be regarded as a popular monarchy in spirit, if not in every detail of form. The king could not have his way in word or deed. In private as well as in public life he was bound down by the limitations of a comparatively rigorous character.⁷ When he misbehaved out of sheer carelessness in public assemblies or councils, it was the function of the ministers as well as the *purohita* to see that he did not err but pursue the path of *dharma*. For this Kauṭalya mentions a curious device of striking a bell which answers to our telephone system and which acts as a check for him to abstain from any wrong course of action.¹