A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.52

c10.52

Such are the two stories of the origin of kingship that are set forth in the Mahābhārata. The mythological atmosphere is patent in either case as also the curious blending of ideas and notions of an incongruous nature. Nevertheless the above extracts, it is hardly too much to say, mark the culmination of the Hindu theories of the king's origin. Let us analyse the leading ideas in these passages. In both, it will be observed, the starting-point is an original State of Nature which is so vividly described in the words of the latter extract, "naiva rājyam na rājāsinna cha daṇḍo na dāṇḍikah." While, however, this involves, in the first case, from the very start a dreadful condition of anarchy, it is presented in the second case as a preliminary condition of peace and righteousness followed by a period of growing degeneracy and accumulating evil. The first theory introduces immediately at the close of the anarchical state of nature a stage which, we think, has no parallel in Hindu political theory except in the passages of the Buddhist canon that have been quoted in another place.∗ This stage involves the formation by popular agreement of society without a political superior, in this approaching closely, to borrow the language of Western political philosophy, to the notion of a social contract as distinguished from a governmental pact. Passing to the immediately following stage it should be noticed that both the extracts attribute the king's creation,—and herein lies the essential difference of the Mahābhārata story from the older theories of the Buddhist canon and of the Arthaśāstra,—to the will of the Supreme Deity. For while in the first story Manu is ordained by the god Brahmā to rule over the people, in the second Viṣṇu creates a mind-begotten son for the same purpose. Here the story might well have ended, but the author goes on to supplement this by importing notions having little or no affinity to that of divine creation. In the first case it is declared that the people made what may be called a one-sided contract with the king-designate, by which they relieved him from the responsibility for their own sins, while charging themselves to pay the royal dues. The king, then, it would seem, rules his subjects by the right of divine creation, which is reinforced by the voluntary agreement of the subjects. In the second case, Pṛithu who is the first true king and is the seventh lineal descendant of Viṣṇu's nominee has to accept an oath of observance of the established laws and institutions, and at the same time he is mentioned to have been not only ordained by Viṣṇu but animated by the God's essence.