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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. c11.s2: II

A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c11.s2

Language
English

II

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Let us now turn to the second class of writings that may be said more or less properly to fall within the limits of this chapter. This is the collection of the Purāṇas and the minor Law-books (Smṛitis), which represents during this period the literature of the Brahminical canon, just as Kāmandaka's Nītisāra represents the literature of Arthaśāstra.∗ Here again, as in the former case, the signs of decline as compared with the vigorous speculation of the earlier epoch are writ large on the surface. For in the first place much as the authors of the Purāṇas worked out in their sections on rājadharma and Nīti the ideas of the older canon, especially in relation to the king’s office, their contributions are essentially of the nature of compilations based upon the earlier material.† Nothing, moreover, is more characteristic of these authors, in so far as our point of view is concerned, than their endless and monotonous repetition of the rules of kingly conduct in the place of speculations of an abstract nature.‡ As regards the minor Law-books we find that however interesting may be the development of the theory of kingship in these works, they make after all but a slight contribution to political theory.∗

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∗ Strictly speaking it is the Mahāpurāṇas alone that should be included along with the minor Smṛitis in the present section, but for the sake of convenience it has been thought advisable to draw upon the minor Purāṇas as well.

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† A remarkable instance of what we think to be pious plagiarism occurs in the Agni Purāṇa (CCXXXVII-CCXLI) which contains a long discourse on Nīti that purports to have been addressed by king Rāma to his brother Lakṣmaṇa. It consists in reality of a string of unacknowledged quotations culled from the successive chapters of Kāmandaka’s Nītisāra.

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‡ A further sign of decline in our view is the description in the Garuḍa Purāṇa (CVIII 1) of Nītiśāstra as a science of general morals, of which the art of government Arthaśāstra is a branch.

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∗ The paucity of political ideas in the Purāṇas and the minor Smritis is explained partly at any rate by their nature and scope. The Purāṇas, as Prof. Bühler pointed out long ago (S. B. E. Vol. XXV, Preface, p. xci), are "popular sectarian compilations of mythology, philosophy, history and the sacred law, intended, as they are now used, for the instruction of the unlettered classes, including the upper divisions of the Śūdravarṇa, the so-called Sachchhudras." The minor Smritis, again, apart from the fact that they have come down to us mostly in a fragmentary form, are concerned in the main with the branches of civil and criminal law alone.

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To illustrate the political ideas of the works that we are now considering, it will be enough to describe their theories of kingship. The Purāṇas repeat in some passages the older view of the primary importance of the king's office from the standpoint of the subjects. The author of the Brihaddharma Purāṇa, for instance, declares in one place that the four orders (āśramas) are capable of enjoying their existence only under the king's protection, while the prosperity that exists in the absence of the king depends upon another person and is therefore insecure.† It is, however, mainly upon the doctrine of the king's divine nature—a doctrine which, as we have seen elsewhere, is as old as the Vedic Saṁhitās—that the authors whom we are now considering depend for the purpose of stressing the principle of monarchical authority. Thus the author last cited declares in one place that the king has a divine body in the form of a mortal, and again, that the king who has the same physical attributes and limbs as other men lives on earth as a god.∗ The idea of the king's divinity is presented by these authors in the two distinct forms that we have found to occur in the Manusamhitā and the Śāntiparvan, namely, that involving the equivalence of the king's functions to those of the deities and that signifying the king's creation by the Supreme God out of the divine elements. Both these notions, it will be presently seen, are connected with the king's fulfilment of the essential duties of his office. The first may be illustrated by means of the following examples. The king, we are told by Nārada as well as Brihatparāśara, assumes the forms of five deities, namely Fire, Indra, the Moon, Yama and Kubera, according as he fulfils an equivalent number of functions.† Slightly altered versions of the above may be traced in the Mārkaṇḍeya and the Brihaddharma Purāṇas.‡ The account in the Agni Purāṇa is somewhat different in as much as it conceives the king as assuming the forms of nine deities according to the nature of his functions. The king, we are told, is like the sun because he can be gazed at with difficulty on account of his lustre; he is like the moon because he is the object of gratification to the people through his sight; he is the god of wind since he sweeps the world with his spies; he is Manu Vaivasvata because of his punishing crimes; he is the god of fire when he burns the evil-minded; he is Kubera when he gives away wealth to the twice-born; he is Varuṇa since he showers wealth; he is the Earth as he sustains the world by his forbearance, and he is the god Hari because he protects the people by exercising the powers of enthusiasm, counsel, and the like.∗

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† Quoted in Hemādri, Chaturvargachintāmaṇi, Vratakhaṇḍam, Vol. II, p. 1060. The same idea is conveyed in another passage of the Brihaddharma Purāṇa (Pūrva-khaṇḍam IV 33) in the form of a striking metaphor. There it is declared that a land without a king is like a woman without a husband.

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∗ Quoted, Hemādri (loc. cit.). Nārada (XVIII 52) compares the king to a deity.

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† Quoted in Mitramiśra's Rājanītiprakāśa, pp. 20-21. The text of Nārada here cited corresponds to chapter XVIII 26-31 of the published work. (Vide S. B. E. Vol. XXXIII pp. 217-218). In another passage quoted by Mitramiśra (op. cit. pp. 21-22) Nārada adds, "The king by virtue of his brightness and purity is like the Being without beginning and without end, provided he does not stray from the path (of duty)."

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‡ The list in the Mārkaṇḍeya (XVII 21) has the Sun and Wind in place of Fire and Kubera, while that of the Brihaddharma (Uttarakhandam III 6-7) has Īśa (Śiva) and Varuṇa in the place of Indra and Kubera,

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∗ CCXXV 17-20.

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Let us next mention the passages illustrating the doctrine of the king's divine creation. Bṛihatparāśara states in one place that the Creator formed the king out of the essences of eight separate deities whose names are specified by the author.† This idea occurs in an amplified form in the Bṛihaddharma Purāṇa which states that the Lord of creatures (Prajāpati) formed the king's person by taking lordship from Indra, power from Agni, cruelty from Yama, prosperity from the Moon, riches from the god of wealth, and steadiness from Viṣṇu.‡

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† Vide Mitramiśra, op. cit., p. 16.

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‡ Uttarakhaṇḍam III 8-9. The Matsya Purāṇa (CCXXVI 1-12) combines the idea of the king's divine creation with that of the equivalence of his functions to those of the deities.

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The theory of the king's divine nature naturally leads to that of the submission and obedience of the subjects, which the canonical authors whom we are now treating appear likewise to have derived from the Manusaṁhitā and the Mahābhārata. This obligation on the part of the subjects is justified, as before, partly on the ground of the primary importance of the king's office and partly on that of his divine nature.∗ The Brihaddharma Purāṇa states in one place that the king assumes the forms of five distinct deities and therefore none should harm or vilify him.† According to Devala the mother is Hari (Viṣṇu), the father is a deity, the elder brother is the god Kriṣṇa, the preceptor is the god Viṣṇu, and the king is a god in visible form; therefore none should harm them.‡ The king's command, so runs a couple of verses in Nārada, makes impure men pure and *vice versa*: hence he should not be slighted or abused.§ Elsewhere Nārada declares in language recalling a celebrated text of Gautama's Dharmaśāstra, "Two persons, a Brāhmaṇa and a king, are declared to be exempt from censure and corporal punishment in this world; for these two sustain the visible world."||

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∗ Nārada, it will be presently seen, adds a third ground involving the king's personal merit, which we are doubtless to understand was acquired by the latter in his previous birth.

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† Uttarakhaṇḍam III 6-7.

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‡ Vide Hemādri, Chaturvargachintāmaṇi, Prāyaśchittakhaṇḍam pp. 76-77.

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§ Vide Mitramiśra, *op. cit.* p. 22.

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|| XV and XVI 20, Jolly's translation. Cf. Gaut. VIII 1-3; XI 31-32, quoted pp. 62-63, supra. We may mention in this connection that Nārada (XVIII 12) forbids advising or rebuking a king as well as a Brāhmaṇa on account of their dignity and sanctity, and elsewhere (Ibid 54) he includes both the king and the Brāhmaṇa in the list of eight sacred objects.

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While in the above extracts the canonical authors would seem to teach the king's right of immunity from harm, they inculcate in other passages more or less on the same twofold basis of the king's divinity and the nature of his office the duty of obedience on the part of the subjects. The king's command, says Brihatparāśara in one place, is his great majesty ; he who disregards this should be slain by means of weapons. Whatever the king hears, does and speaks, should be done by all his subjects. He who disregards the king's power at once perishes. Finally the author clinches his arguments by putting a question. "Who will not," he asks, "obey the command of the person that quickly does, sees, hears, knows, causes to shine and protects, everything, since he is born out of the essences of all deities?"[^asterisk] We may notice in this passage a tendency to develop the older teaching relating to the obedience of the subjects. This tendency, we think, is most prominent in the next passage that we shall consider. The king's command, says Nārada in one place, should be obeyed, otherwise death would follow. What the king says, be it right or wrong, is the law (dharma) of the suitors. The king lives on this earth like a visible Indra ; the people cannot prosper by violating his orders. Whatever a king does is right, that is the settled rule, because the protection of the world is entrusted to him and on account of his majesty and benignity towards all creatures. As a husband though worthless must be always worshipped by his wives, in the same way the king though feeble should be worshipped by his subjects. Through fear of the king's command the people do not swerve from their duties. The subjects are purchased by the king's austerity, he is their master, therefore they should submit to his command ; their pursuits of

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[^asterisk]: \* Vide Mitramiśra, op. cit. p. 23.

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agriculture, pasturage and the like (vārtā), depend upon the king.∗ In this extract it is categorically stated that the king should be honoured irrespectively of his personal qualifications, and his orders obeyed without reference to their moral justification. Whether the further implication of this theory as involving absolute non-resistance on the part of the subjects was realized by the author, it is impossible to say. But there can be no doubt that the above passage marks the culmination of the Hindu doctrines of submission and obedience and makes the closest approach to the Western theory of Divine Right.

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∗ Quoted, Mitramiśra, *op. cit.* p. 22.

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And yet while sufficiently emphasizing as above the principle of monarchical authority, the authors whom we are now considering are careful to re-iterate, however partially, the principles tending to check the abuse of the king's power. These writers, to begin with, repeatedly express the idea that the king is the universal protector.† The duty of protection moreover, is enjoined by means of the usual sanctions. It should further be observed that as in the Manusamhitā, the conception of the king's divine creation is here held to involve his divinely ordained duty of protection rather than his divine right to rule.†

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† The Garuḍapurāṇa (vide Mitramiśra, *op. cit.* p. 30) declares that the king is the strength of the weak. A passage of the Kālikāpurāṇa (Ibid p. 30) states that the king is the son of the sonless, the riches of the poor, the mother of the motherless, the father of the fatherless, the protector of those who have no supporter, the husband of the widow, the servant of those who have none such and the friend of men. Brihaspati (Ibid p. 24) declares that the king (rājan) is so called because he gladdens (rañjayati) his subjects with the fourfold division of his troops and because he shines in his own person. A text of Kātyāyana (Ibid p. 30) mentions that the king is called the preceptor of those who have none, the home of the homeless, the son of the sonless, and the father of the fatherless.

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^∗ The Brihaddharmapurāṇa (Uttarakhaṇḍam III 10-11) states that the king who protects his subjects acquires the sixth part of their spiritual merit and performs, as it were, a thousand Aśvamedha sacrifices. According to the Mārkaṇḍeya-purāṇa (XXVII 31) the king gains a portion of righteousness by protecting his subjects. The king, we are told in the Agni-purāṇa (CCXXII 7; 9-11), who oppresses his subjects shall live for ever in hell. The person who protects his subjects, the author continues, lives as it were in heaven, while hell is the abode of the man whose subjects are not protected. The king earns a sixth part of the merits as well as the demerits of his subjects. He acquires virtue by means of protection and incurs sin by its default.

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† Cf. Matsya Purāṇa (CCXXVI 1) where the king is said to have been created by the Self—existent One (*i.e.* Brahmā) for the purpose of inflicting punishment and of protecting all creatures. For the view in the Manusamhitā, vide p. 185, supra.

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