A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c12.s1.22

c12.s1.22

While the great commentators of the Smritis maintain on however modest a scale the earlier traditions of original and vigorous speculation, the authors whom we have now to consider do not, it seems to us, present any points of original interest so far as our point of view is concerned. This result may, we think, be explained in the case of the latter writers by considering the circumstances in which they were placed. The Jaina canon, unlike that of the Buddhists, seems to have been wanting in germs of political thought that might be developed in later times. The Jaina writers of this period, it may be further remarked, had the misfortune to live in an age when Hindu political thought had passed its meridian, and there was nothing in their genius that might compensate for the lack of outward inspiration. Hence when they undertook the systematic examination of the phenomena of the State, they had no other alternative than to copy more or less completely the rules and principles that had been bequeathed by their Brahminical rivals in the past.