A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c3.5

c3.5

A history of Hindu political thought, it may seem, should involve some digression into the general systems of Hindu philosophy, for some of the root-ideas of the former, such, e.g., as the doctrine of creation of the social order, are embedded in the ideas and principles of the latter. It is, however, a remarkable fact that the study of statecraft and cognate topics branched off at an early period in the history of the race from the general stream of Vedic culture and formed an independent branch of knowledge which might be called a secular science, were it not for the pronounced disinclination of the Hindu mind to conceive the secular life as the antithesis of the religious. In regard to the theories of the Brāhmaṇical canon, it may be observed that questions relating to the origin and nature of the king’s office and the like have been treated in so far as they are so treated, on the basis of broad theological principles, e.g., the creation of kingship by the will of the Supreme Being. In these circumstances it has been held that a general treatment of such religio-ethical or socio-religious concepts as Dharma and the institution of the castes and orders is sufficient for the purposes of this work.