A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c11.s1.22

c11.s1.22

Next to his inculcation of discipline on the king’s part may be mentioned as an illustration of the author’s statecraft his rule of punishment (daṇḍa). Paraphrasing a text of Kauṭilya Kāmandaka shows the evils of excessive severity as well as leniency, and he recommends the infliction of just punishment.⁴ With equal fidelity to his master he points out in a later passage, the function of punishment as the grand safeguard against anarchy, and he connects this with the old Brahminical idea of the universal wickedness of men⁵. Since creatures with their proper duties violated, he says, have a tendency to prey upon one another, there arises in the absence of punishment the destructive condition indicated by the maxim of the fishes (mātsyanyāya). Amplifying this idea in the following verse, the author states that this world, shelterless and being perforce caused to sink into hell under the influence of desire, greed and the like, is sustained by the king by means of punishment.∗ This is followed by two other verses of the same nature, but it is unnecessary to quote them here.