Hindu Administrative Institutions c8.s2.25

c8.s2.25

To determine the true position of the Brahmana community is to study the social and religious organizations of ancient India. We are not at present concerned with this knotty problem. Ours is the examination of the institution of the *purohita* (literally *præpositus*). We cannot positively assign a date to the origin of this all important institution. But one thing is obvious, namely, that no office of monarchy or chieftaincy existed even in very early times without this office of the *purohita*. Both appear to have been the twins of the same mother, the state. Every state had a chieftain or king and every chieftain or king had invariably a *purohita*. Sometimes there was only one *purohita* for more than two or three kings. Devabhāga Srautarṣi was the *purohita* of the kings of both the Srinjayas and the Kurus.¹ It seems to have been an hereditary office. In the Sūryavaṃsa the Ikṣvāku kings invariably speak of Vasiṣṭha as their *purohita*. Orthodox tradition has it that the same Vasiṣṭha lived for thousands of years on account of his great *tapas* while monarchs died and succeeded. Whatever may be the truth, one fact is prominent and that is that there must have been a number of hereditary *purohitas* each called after the far-famed ancestor Vasiṣṭha taking a legitimate pride in their birth in such a distinguished line. Even to-day it is a custom in India to adopt the surnames or hereditary titles of famous forefathers.² Again Eggeling speaks of the gradually increasing importance of the office of *purohita*. ‘From the comparatively modest position of a private chaplain who had to attend to the sacrificial obligations of his master he appears to have gradually raised himself to the dignity of so to say a minister of public worship and confidential adviser of the king.’³ So far we cannot trace any evolution in the increasing importance of the office. In support of this statement a text of the *Rig Veda*⁴ ascribed to Vāmadeva is quoted. But the passage in question does not warrant any modest position to the *purohita*. His extraordinary influence is greatly felt. He is all-powerful, perhaps more powerful than the king himself. It would be certainly instructive to quote the passage. ‘That king alone in front of whom the Brahman walks (पूर्व एति) lives well established in his house: for him there is ever abundance of food: before him the people bow of their own accord!’ Certainly this does not warrant any modest position to the purohita. But Eggeling takes shelter under the ill-supported argument that these verses are a later addition. Let alone this passage. There is another verse wherein the invocation addressed to Agni, the latter is characterized as the purohita, the divine ministrant of the sacrifice. The text runs as follows: ‘I magnify Agni the purohita, the divine ministrant of the sacrifice, the Hotṛ priest, the greatest bestower of treasures.’¹ From this it is obvious that Agni does not hold the position of a private chaplain in the kingdom of gods but he is the ‘divine ministrant’ and ‘the king of all worship’. ²