The Mauryan Polity c11.s1.t2.7

c11.s1.t2.7

The competitive principle, as we experience to-day, produces more of evil than good. This was avoided by the principle known as *svadharma*, so much insisted on by Indian writers, secular or religious. This is the very principle on which the author of the *Arthaśāstra* has worked out the theory of the State. The *svadharma* of the king is to endeavour and protect the people according to *dharma* or law.¹ And the fruit of such *svadharma* is the attainment of heaven. This is exactly what the authors of the *Dharmasūtras* and *Dharmaśāstras* have prescribed.² The *Arthaśāstra* clearly states that the social polity, entitled *varṇāśrama dharma*, and the prosecution by the king of his duty demanded that the castes and the orders did not err from the ordained path, but pursued the path of *dharma* by sticking on to their own duties. This shows that the state punished that member of the society who gave up his own *dharma* and interfered with the *dharma* of the other communities. In a word the state expected every citizen to discharge his obligations according to the *dharma* of his caste and order.