A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c11.s2.27

c11.s2.27

^∗ 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.