A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c13.11

c13.11

Turning to the other aspects of the Hindu political theory, we may observe that it distinguishes although not completely between the concepts of the State and society—a distinction which could not have presented itself within the narrow limits of the Greek city-state. In the Brahminical social order, it is true, the king's function is envisaged in its entirety so as to include his political as well as his domestic activities, but his essential task, it is repeatedly urged, is executive government and the administration of justice.† Next, we may consider what we think to be the pivot of the Brahminical social scheme, namely, the differentiation of the ruling and the fighting Kṣattriya or king from the teaching and sacrificing Brāhmaṇa. This presents at first sight a remarkable analogy to the dualism of Church and State in mediaeval European thought, but a closer study reveals important differences between the two sets of ideas. For apart from the fact just mentioned, namely, the absence of a complete separation of the concepts of State and society in the Hindu theory, it has to be remembered that the antithesis between the secular and the religious concerns and interests of man involving as its necessary corollary two distinct jurisdictions, is foreign to the Hindu mind. On the contrary the Hindu view, looking upon both as equally necessary in their proper places for the fulfilment of the individual, applies itself to their synthesis and reconciliation to the end of perfecting man's progressive nature. For the above reason the question of the Brāhmaṇa's position in relation to the Kṣattriya or the king has not, we think, the same significance as that of the mutual relations of Church and State in European theory.