A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.s1.5

c10.s1.5

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