A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.117

c10.117

It will appear from the above that the canonical authors while broadly inculcating the subordination of politics to morality condone some slight breaches of this principle for fulfilling what they conceive to be the interests of the State. In justification of this attitude the author of the Śāntiparvan first mentions the argument that his rules of policy, however much they might offend against the principles of higher morality, are based upon the supreme law of self-preservation which involves in this case the acquisition of power as well. Thus in chapter CXXX which forms the great storehouse of such arguments, Bhīṣma begins by expressing his disapprobation of the rule that he is about to suggest in the case specified by Yudhiṣṭhira—the rule, namely, that the king should relieve his own distress by seizing the wealth of all his subjects other than that of the ascetics and the Brāhmaṇas. This line of conduct, he says, while fitted to ensure the king’s livelihood is not approved by himself from the point of view of true morality in as much as it involves the infliction of pain upon the subjects and in the end is destructive like death itself. Nevertheless Bhīṣma has no hesitation in urging in the lines immediately following that the king should raise the revenue as one raises water out of waterless tracts. In supporting this view he says, “Virtue can be secured without acquiring the revenue, but life is more important than religious merit.” Developing this idea in a later verse he says that since the weak man who follows the path of virtue is incapable of securing a just means of subsistence and since strength can not be acquired by mere effort, an unrighteous act assumes the nature of virtue in times of distress, while a righteous act becomes in such times a sin. The whole effect of this teaching is summed up in the dictates of unblushing egoism. “With his whole soul and by all means, the king should seek to deliver not his or anyone else’s virtue but only himself.”[^asterisk]