A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.35

c10.35

The theories of kingship in the canonical works with which we are here concerned involve, we think, the amplification in a greater or less measure of the principles jointly bequeathed by the early Arthaśāstra teachers and the authors of the canonical Dharmasūtras. The author of the Mahābhārata, to begin with, reproduces, obviously for the purpose of justifying the royal authority, the earlier conception of the essential importance of the king's office. In chapter LXVII Bhīṣma, replying to one of Yudhiṣṭhira's questions, declares that the 'chiefest' duty of the subjects consists in the consecration of the king. A kingless State, he explains, is overcome by robbers : there virtue does not become settled, and the people devour one another. In a kingless State Bhīṣma goes on, fire does not convey libations to the gods, even the wicked do not prosper ; the two rob the one and many others rob the two ; he that is not a slave is made a slave ; the women are forcibly abducted. If the king, says Bhīṣma in concluding this part of his argument, did not exist in this world as a wielder of punishment, the stronger would