A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c14.6

c14.6

It thus appears that the Hindu theories involve at least in the later examples a composite blending of the ideas of contract and divine creation. With this preliminary word of caution we shall now proceed to compare them with the Western theories of social contract on the one hand, and those of Divine Right on the other. As regards the first article, it is well to begin by emphasising a point that is apt to be lost sight of in the current estimates of the two groups of theories. It appears that none of the Hindu theories approaches the character of a system, and that while embodying rational speculation they are placed in a mythological setting. On the other hand, Hobbes, to mention one example of a Western political philosopher with whom it has been sought‡ to establish a close resemblance on the part of the Hindu thinkers, was the author of a great system uniting in itself the principal currents of contemporary thought, and he carried the spirit of rationalism to a point unknown even to his great forerunner Grotius.§ The Hindu theories of contract in this respect fall below the level attained by the European exponents of the contract theory in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.