A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.40

c10.40

Turning to the doctrine of divine nature of the king we have to observe that this is presented by our authors principally in connection with the remarkable, and as it seems to us, original theories of the creation of monarchy. These views, we are inclined to think, were formulated in the works we are now considering with the deliberate object of countering the tendencies inherent in the older theory of the king’s origin. The Buddhist theory of contract, as we have observed in another place, tended to strengthen a notion already familiar to Hindu political theory, namely that the king was an official paid by his subjects for the service of protection.∗ Such a notion could not but be repugnant to those schools and teachers who upheld, as well in the canonical Dharmasūtras as in the secular Arthaśāstra, the king’s office as the guarantee of individual and social existence. Kauṭilya, as we have seen, was satisfied with a modified version of the Buddhist theory which he twisted to justify the king’s authority and backed up with the doctrine of the king’s divine nature. But his attempt was obviously a bold makeshift and nothing more. It was therefore neces-