A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c12.s2.32

c12.s2.32

We have thus found in Śukra a twofold principle justifying the king's authority over his subjects. The king, it is held, is the maker of his age and rules by personal merit. With this is combined the notion that the king is a multiple deity by virtue of the resemblance of his functions to those of the deities. Let us next consider what privileges are claimed by the author on behalf of the king in the light of the above principles. We may begin by mentioning the remarkable passage which makes monarchy, as it were, the natural and necessary condition of the subjects. "The king, although endowed with good qualities, may sometimes lack sovereignty over his subjects, but the latter, be they never so wicked, must not live without a king." The author makes his meaning clear in the immediately following passage by employing a bold mythological simile. "As Indrāṇī (*i.e.* the queen of Indra) is never without a husband, so are the subjects never (without a master,'"* Śukra, moreover, inculcates in the earlier fashion the duties which the subjects owe to their ruler. The people, he says in one place, should salute the king as if he were an incarnation of Viṣṇu, and they should not divulge the king's secrets or even think of harming or slaying him.†