A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.127

c10.127

The last argument urged by the author in justifying the rule relating to the king's forcible seïzure of the property of the subjects is based upon the notion of the paramount importance of the king or of the State—a notion which, if pressed to its logical conclusion, would involve the view that the State is above and beyond morality. Since the Kṣattriya, Bhīṣma says in one of the verses of chapter CXXX, is the destroyer as well as the preserver of the people, he should take away wealth from them when he is engaged in the task of protection. Further on he says that the king and the subjects (lit. the kingdom) should protect each other in times of difficulty. Just as the king protects his subjects in their peril by bestowing his substance, so should the latter support the former in his difficulty. In a later passage Bhīṣma states that the revenue is the root of the king; it is also the root of the army which again is the root of all duties which in their turn are the root of the subjects. In the following lines the hero compares, for the purpose of exculpating the royal exactions, the king's function to the performance of a sacrificial act.∗