A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c11.s2.6

c11.s2.6

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.∗