A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c13.13

c13.13

The Hindu political theory, as we have repeatedly observed, is essentially the theory of the monarchic State,—resembling in this respect much of the mediaeval and modern European thought and differing from the thought of classical antiquity. Let us then endeavour to set forth, more or less in relation to the parallel Western ideas, the principal features of the Hindu idea of kingship.∗ As we have observed elsewhere, the Hindu authors frequently declare the king to be created by the Divine will, and the Mahābhārata, in particular, suggests in its elaborate stories of the king's creation that kingship is the divinely ordained remedy for man's sin. The Hindu thinkers more often conceive the king to partake of a divine nature as embodying the essence of Viṣṇu or of the eight guardian deities, or at least by virtue of the resemblance of his functions to those of the gods. From these arguments follow as a natural corollary the duties of non-injury, obedience and the like on the part of the subjects with reference to their ruler.† These ideas and notions will at once suggest to the student of European thought striking analogies in the speculations of the mediæval Church. The Hindu writers, however, more frequently mention in justification of the king's authority the essential importance of kingship from the standpoint of the Individual and the society\*—a conception which, as we have just observed, may be matched in Greek philosophical thought. Incidentally it may be noticed as illustrating the peculiar development of the Hindu view that Kauṭilya derives from his implied theory of Contract an additional plea for the king's prerogative of taxation, while Śukra discovers a fresh basis of the king's rule in the latter's personal merit.†