A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c11.s2.15

c11.s2.15

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."||