A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.125

c10.125

Among the subsidiary arguments urged by the author in justification of his partially unscrupulous statecraft is one based upon the nature of the Kṣattriya's rule of life. The idea in this case is that the inexorable authority of the sacred canon imposes upon the Kṣattriya or the king who is in distress some rules of doubtful morality,—a view which evidently implies the canon to be above and beyond morality. Neither subsistence by begging, says Bhīṣma in another place in the course of the above argument, nor the occupation of the Vaiśya or the Śūdra, has been ordained for the Kṣattriya whose treasury and army are weak and who is therefore overpowered by all people; for him there has been prescribed only that occupation which is next to his proper duty.∗