The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c11.23

c11.23

Whether in this arbitrary, capricious and vicious despot of the Jâtakas we have to look for the true picture of the rájan of the older Buddhistic age, cannot be determined with certainty. Individual dispositions for giving the ruler unlimited power, now exclusively for his own ends, now for the good of his subjects come as much into view—though it should not be forgotten that we have to do not only in the literature but also in the history of India more with types than with individuals—as the attempt of the narrator to give the hoary legends as much an antiquated and primitive character as possible. In any case, this very little flattering picture of the rájan seems to me to come nearer the truth than the portrait of the ruler as sketched in other places and idealised under the influence of Buddhistic morality.