A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c13.2

c13.2

Let us endeavour in this concluding chapter to sum up the leading concepts of the Hindu political thinkers and set them forth in the broader perspective of their relation to Western thought. It has, we believe, been abundantly made clear in the foregoing pages that the political ideas of the Hindus present in the main two distinct types, of which one is principally associated with the Brahminical canon, while the other forms the core of the Arthaśāstra and the Nītiśāstra. These two types, it seems to us, are related to each other not as religious and secular, but rather as generic and special, forms of speculation, and so far from flowing in independent channels they frequently cross and recross each other’s path, furnishing thereby one of the strongest incentives to the development of political theory.∗ In considering the generalisations that are attempted in the present place for the purpose of analysis and comparison, it will be well to make due allowance for the existence of these interrelated but distinct strata of thought.