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A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.s1: II

A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.s1

Language
English

II

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It has been our endeavour in the early part of this chapter to show how the canonical authors of the present period incorporated a more or less considerable branch of the Arthaśāstra thought with the teaching of the older canon. We have now to mention another author belonging apparently to the close of this period who represented, although in an incidental fashion and within closely restricted limits, an independent, not to say contrary, tradition of political thinking. The Chatuhśatikā written by the Buddhist monk Āryadeva is a didactic and philosophical work, but it has even in its existing fragmentary condition at least two extracts bearing specifically on the subject-matter of politics. It will be convenient to treat these extracts along with the accompanying commentary which, however distant it might be in time, elucidates the author's meaning by connecting it with the imaginary *prima facie* argument (pūrva-pakṣa) to which it apparently furnishes an answer. The first extract is concerned with the nature of the king's office. Replying, as the commentator mentions, to the argument that the king's pride is justified because all undertakings depend upon him, Āryadeva states with angry impatience, "What superciliousness is thine, (O King!), thou who art a (mere) servant of the multitude (gaṇadāsa) and who receivest the sixth part (of the produce) as thine wages."[^asterisk] In the above passage, it will be observed, an idea frequently represented in the earlier literature, namely, that the king is an official paid by the

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[^asterisk]: *Chatuhśatikā*, p. 461.

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people for the service of protection, is for once carried to its extreme limit, and however much we may be disinclined to treat Āryadeva’s outburst as partaking of the nature of a well-considered political theory, it is impossible not to be struck with the broad contrast that it presents to the attitude of the Brahminical canonists of this period who applied themselves principally to the vindication of monarchical authority.∗

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∗ While on the subject of kingship as conceived by Āryadeva, we may pause for a moment to trace the subsequent fortunes of the Buddhist theory of Contract,—a theory which as we have seen in another place, hinges upon the election of a fictitious king called Mahāsammata by popular consent. It appears to us, from the evidence bearing on this point, that the Buddhist theory was pushed into the background by the rival Brahminical theories of the king’s divine creation and was finally extinguished on the Indian soil along with the faith of which it was the product. It is significant to notice in this connection that the author of the Śukranīti, while exhibiting (I 188) at a later date Āryadeva’s conception of the king’s relation to the people, is constrained to base this upon the king’s ordination by the god Brahmā (Infra, ch. VII). Meanwhile, however, Buddhism had travelled to distant lands, and the theory of Contract as forming part and parcel of the Sacred Canon, found a secure asylum in the native literatures of those countries. We thus get more or less identical accounts of the election of Mahāsammata in the Tibetan Dulva (Vide Rockhill, *Life of the Buddha*, pp. 1-9), the Burmese Damathat (Richardson’s translation, p. 7) *and* the Ceylonese sacred works (vide Spence Hardy, *Manual of Buddhism*, p. 68.) \* Catuḥśatikā pp, 462-464.

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The second extract which we may properly consider in this connection is concerned with what may be called the relation of politics to morality. The wise man, Āryadeva states in one place, should not conform to all the doings of the sages since even among them there exist the grades of bad, intermediate and good persons. This passage, the commentator thinks, answers the plea that the king who even slays creatures in accordance with the law (dharma) laid down by the sages (riṣipraṇīta) commits no sin. In days of yore, the author states in the following verse, the people were protected by the good kings as if these were their own children; but the world is now converted into a deer-park, as it were, by kings following the rule of the Iron Age. This passage, according to the commentator, is intended to teach that the canon which is consistent with righteousness is binding, while that which is inconsistent with the same has no authority. If the king striking at his enemy through a loophole, the author urges with pitiless logic in a later verse, were to commit no sin, sinful consequences would not accrue to other thieves from beforehand. This passage, the commentator thinks, refutes the argument that the canon declares the king striking through a loophole to be exempt from sin. In a later verse the author similarly observes, “The sacrifice of one’s all in the form of indulgence in wine and such other things is not commended. How then can the sacrifice of one’s own self in battle be praised?” Here we have, according to the commentator, the answer to the plea that if the king dies on the battlefield, he surely attains heaven by virtue of his self-sacrifice.cont

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The above extract, it seems to us, controverts the position of the Brāhmaṇa canonists of this period at some important points. In the Manusaṁhitā and the Mahābhārata, as we have seen in another place, Politics is treated within certain limits as more or less independent of morality.∗ Hence the authors not only justify lawful slaughter, but also approve of the king's treacherous attack upon his foe, and in the same spirit commend the king's death on the battlefield as an act of the highest sacrifice. Far different is the attitude exhibited by the Buddhist author in the passage above quoted. To this stern and uncompromising moralist Politics, it would appear, is absolutely subservient to morality. He begins by boldly avowing, in justification of his ban against lawful slaughter, that the sages themselves must be judged by the eternal standards of right and wrong. Continuing his argument in the following verse, he points out by contrast with the conditions of a hypothetical golden age in the past the wickedness of the canonical laws of his own time. This implies, if we may trust the commentator, that the sacred canon itself must be judged by the ethical standard. Turning to another point, the Buddhist author declares, in flat contradiction of the Brāhmaṇa canonists, that the king treacherously attacking his enemy is just like an ordinary robber, while his self-sacrifice on the battlefield is on the same moral level as the spending of one's whole substance in riotous living.

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∗ Vide supra, pp. 199-200,

Cites (4)