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A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6: Introduction

A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6

Language
English

Contents

Introduction

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The Hindus belong to the category of peoples who have left their impress upon the pages of history as the founders of original systems of political thought. The foundation of the Hindu ideas of the State was laid at a time and in a region which ensured their indigenous origin. In the long and varied history of their subsequent development and decline, even at the points of the closest contact with extraneous systems of thought, there is no reasonable room for doubt regarding either the native source of their inspiration or else their national stamp.

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It thus appears that the factors that helped to give rise to the political theories of the Hindus must have been embedded in the peculiar conditions of the land and character of its people. The most general factor that fostered these theories appears to have been the variety and multiplicity of the States that crowded the stage of Indian history in ancient times. India, as has been well said, is the type of endless diversity strangely yoked with an underlying unity. In the political sphere the unifying idea has struggled unceasingly with the deeply rooted tendency towards disruption, and hence empires of greater or smaller extent and duration have alternated with a bewildering maze of petty States. But the Indian States were not, contrary to the usual view, modelled after a uniform pattern, that of despotic monarchy. The political history of India reveals at frequent intervals from the earliest period down at least to the fifth century A. D. a number of republican constitutions existing side by side with the familiar monarchic governments. It is evident that these conditions offered an exceptionally wide and rich field for the investigation of the concrete facts of political life and the formulation of general principles regarding their nature. Further, the intense strain and tension in which, in the absence of an effective international law guaranteeing the safety of the weaker States against the stronger, the lives of most Indian governments were passed, had the result of making the Art of Government (Arthaśāstra) a subject of burning interest. The same cause appears to have given rise to a remarkable notion underlying all the rules of the Arthaśāstra and much of the rules of the Brāhmaṇical canon, namely that the State, while subject like all human institutions to the influence of chance, was essentially a work of art requiring the exercise of the highest qualities of mind and body for its successful direction. The last influence that seems to have stimulated the political speculations of the Hindus was sectarian rivalry. It is true that in the long run the political ideas of the people transcended the differences of sect and assumed a more or less stereotyped character. Thus the theories of the State that are embodied in the Jaina legal and political treatises are in substance the replicas of the corresponding ideas of the Brāhmaṇas. In the early phase of its growth, however, Hindu political thought found in the divergence of sects a powerful stimulus. Thus the challenge thrown out by the Buddhist divines to the standard orthodox doctrine of the origin of society apparently led to the theory of Contract, while the reply of the Brāhmaṇa canonists in the Manusamhitā and the Mahābhārata involved the formulation of theories largely tinged with the dogma of the divine creation and personality of the king.

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Such in our view are the factors that helped to sow the seeds of political speculation on the Indian soil. It is, however, idle to disguise the fact that scholars of undoubted eminence have pointed to certain alleged tendencies of the Hindu national character as disqualifying the people from conceiving the idea of the State. It was a little over half a century ago that the illustrious Prof. Max Müller delivered his verdict on the genius of the Hindu people in words that have become classical. “The Hindus,” he said, “were a nation of philosophers. Their struggles were the struggles of thought; their past, the problem of creation; their future, the problem of existence.......It might therefore be justly said that India has no place in the political history of the world.”cont This celebrated dictum, which was justified at the time of its pronouncement by the darkness in which the history and the literature of ancient India were still enveloped, would seem to call for no serious notice at the present day, when immense strides have been taken in almost every branch of Indian antiquities. It is, however, a tribute to the enduring influence of Max Müller’s teaching that his verdict is still accepted in scholarly circles in the present times. Thus it is confidently declared by a recent writer in words echoing the classical lines cited above, “The Orient in general, India in particular, did not conceive the idea of the State...... To employ a Christian expression, the sole city for the Indian sages is the city divine.”[^ *] Another eminent scholar attributes to the religious institutions of the Hindus the same dominating influence as is attached by Max Müller to their religious ideals. “From the beginning of India’s history,” writes Prof. Bloomfield, “religious institutions control the character and the development of its people to an extent unknown elsewhere........The religious life of the Brahmanical Hindu is divided into the four stages of religious disciple; god-fearing and sacrificing householder; contemplative forest-dweller; and wandering world-abandoning ascetic. Such at least is the theory of their religious law......There is no provision in such a scheme for the interests of the State and the development of the race.”†

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* *History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature*, 1859, p. 31.

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† *Religion of the Veda*, pp. 4-5. \* The list of vidyās is sometimes (Kauṭilya I 1, Kāmandaka III 1, Manusaṁhitā VII 43, Śukranīti I 152-154) given as four, sometimes (Vāyupurāṇam III 6 ; 28) as eighteen, and sometimes (Śukranīti IV 3. 27-30 etc.) as thirty-two in number. Each of these lists contains some secular branches of knowledge. Thus the first and the shortest list comprises Politics (daṇḍanīti) and Economics (vārtā) ; in the second list are included medicine (āyurveda), military science (dhanurveda), music (gandharvavidyā) and Politics (arthaśāstra) ; the last list contains Politics (arthaśāstra), Erotics (kāmaśāstra), fine arts (śilpaśāstra) and other subjects. † The number of kalās more than rivalled that of the sciences as it consisted, according to the ordinary enumeration, of sixty-four kinds. Cf. Śukranīti IV 3. 67-100. ‡ The Hindu view of the International States-system (maṇḍala) comprised a group of States varying from two to fifty-four according to different authorities (vide Kāmandaka XII 20 ff.), although the usually accepted number was twelve. The forms of diplomacy and foreign policy, moreover, were arranged by the Hindu writers under four and six heads respectively, which were further subdivided as well as rearranged into composite types.

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Such is the estimate of the Hindu cultural ideals and institutions that modern writers seem to have inherited as a sacred legacy from the late Prof. Max Müller. And yet, when tested in the light of sober fact, it is found to be no more than a half-truth. To prove the hollowness of the charge that the ideals of the ancient Hindus were pitched in an exclusively religious key, it is not even necessary to refer to the remarkable blending of secular and religious types

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[^ *]: Janet, *Histoire de la Science Politique*, tome I, p. 26, English translation by the present writer.

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in the extant literature of India and in its traditional lists of sciences (vidyās)\*, or to the multiplicity of its practical arts (kalās)† and the multiple developments of its State consciousness.‡ The same purpose is likely to be served by a careful study of the story of the development of the Hindu mind that is unfolded in these pages. This, it is expected, will show that the State was regarded in Hindu eyes as an essential instrument for securing not merely the whole life, but also the bare existence, of the people. This conception led not only in the ‘secular’ Arthaśāstra but also in the later Brahminical canon to the view that the State was within certain limits virtually an end in itself. Another point that it is hoped to demonstrate in the course of this work is that the Hindu scheme of social order involved not merely the horizontal division into orders (āśramas) but also the vertical division into classes (varṇas), besides involving the king who was in many respects *sui generis*. In this scheme the Kṣatriya householder was required to be not merly "god-fearing and sacrificing," but also to protect all other classes. The function of protection, indeed, was the special province of the king, and so highly was it esteemed that the kingly duty (rājadharma) was held in the Mahābhārata to be equivalent in moral values to the duties of the four castes and the four orders put together. Above all the primary law of self-preservation was held in such great respect in the Brahminical canon that individuals and classes were permitted for the sake of livelihood to assume in times of difficulty abnormal functions which were aptly designated as emergency duties (āpaddharma). In the sphere of public life the application of this principle is illustrated by the rule of the Mahābhārata authorising all classes to take up arms in self-defence 'when the king's power wanes and the social order vanishes,' as well as by the injunction requiring submission to any one, even a Śūdra, who saves society from anarchy.

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Nevertheless there is a grain of truth concealed in the estimate of Hindu cultural ideals and institutions to which reference has been made above. It is an undoubted fact that the ancient Indian atmosphere was pre-eminently charged with the religious spirit. Nothing indeed shows this more clearly than the fate that overtook the materialistic schools of

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[^ *]: Vide Ch. IV. Infra. [^ †]: Ibid thought which arose from time to time under the congenial influence of the fruitful genius of the people and their traditional tolerance of free thinking. The philosophical school of Chārvāka, to mention only one instance of this class, became the target of unmeasured attack from the most diversified schools of thought and it failed to take root on the Indian soil. The distinctive aim of catholic Hinduism, however, was to co-ordinate the material as well as the spiritual interests of men instead of exalting either of these at the expense of the other. The Hindu view of life, the view that is common to the Brahminical, the Buddhist and the Jaina, schools of thought, implies two paths or processes which wonderfully complement each other in the progress towards self-realisation,—the path of enjoyment (pravritti) and that of renunciation (nivritti). While liberation (mokṣa) is conceived to be the goal of the latter path, the former involves a co-ordination of the three ends, viz, virtue (dharma), pleasure (kāma) and wealth (artha), or at least the pursuit of the second and the third under the guidance and direction of the first.∗ This profound appreciation of the totality of human interests lies, unless we are greatly mistaken, at the root of the sociological ideas of the Hindus.

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∗ Cf. Manusamhitā II 224: "(Some declare that) the chief good consists in (the acquisition of) spiritual merit and wealth, (others place it) in (the gratification of) desire and (the acquisition of) wealth, (others) in (the acquisition of) spiritual merit alone, and (others say that the acquisition of) wealth alone is the chief good here (below); but the (correct) decision is that it is the aggregate of (these) three." Cf. Ibid VI 34-37; XII 88-90. Also compare Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra I 7 : Śukranīti III 2.

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We have endeavoured to dispose of the main argument advanced by some scholars to discredit the claim of the ancient Indians to have contributed to the theories of the State. It remains to consider two offshoots of this view which command wide acceptance at the present day. In the first place it is held that not only the Indians but all other Oriental peoples were so thoroughly imbued with faith in the divine creation and ordering of the world that they were never of the State, they were too much vitiated by theological admixture to deserve the title of scientific deductions. Thus to quote the authority already cited, "In the ancient empires of the East to such an extent were religion and law confused that political science can scarcely be said to have existed as an independent branch of knowledge. The ultimate sanction of all law was supposed to be found in the sacred writings."∗ Writing in the same strain but with a restricted application Prof. Dunning observes, "The Oriental Aryans never freed their politics from the theological and metaphysical environment in which it is embedded to-day...... The Aryans of Europe have shown themselves to be the only peoples to whom the term 'political' may be properly applied."†

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∗ Willoughby, *Nature of the State*, p. 12.

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† A *History of Political Theories, Ancient and Mediaeval*, Introduction, pp. xix-xx.

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In considering the above arguments in their application to the Indian conditions alone, it is well to remember at the outset that the thought of the Brahminical canonists is not co-extensive with the whole realm of Hindu culture. In the field which is treated by us in the present place we may notice at least three other phases of thought, the Buddhist, the Arthaśāstra and the Jaina, of which the first two are more or less independent of Brahminical influence. Now nothing is more characteristic of the Buddhist and the Arthaśāstra political thought than its bold and avowed appeal to human reason. The early schools and authors of the Arthaśāstra, in particular, introduced, as we have already observed, the conception of an independent branch of knowledge specifically concerned with the acquisition and the preservation of States, or in other words with the Art of Government, and not only did this science gather a rich literature around itself extending far down into the Middle Ages, but it found a place in the traditional lists of sciences. Furthermore, the ideas of the Arthaśāstra, as we shall see later on, were not confined within the four corners of an isolated system: they were absorbed and assimilated in the system of the Brahminical canon and were thence transmitted to other systems which drew their inspiration therefrom. Regarding the theory of the Brahminical canon it has to be admitted that human reason was not allowed such full scope as to bring into question the foundations of the system, such, *e,g,*, as the grand concept of the social order with its attendant list of duties (dharma) relating to the constituent classes thereof: the trend of thought, on the contrary, was to make use of the faculty of reason for the purpose of establishing the validity of those concepts. We may further grant that the Brahminical ideas of the State are conceived principally in the setting of the Whole Duty of the king, and are linked up in several instances, as in the doctrine of the king's creation, with the notions of theology. Nevertheless it is a remarkable fact that ‘rājadharma’ is treated in the canonical tradition of the Brāhmaṇas as independent of the Vedas at least in some of its parts, and it is held to be divisible from the point of view of its consequences into two classes corresponding to the king's political and his personal functions. This was expressed with great force by the most famous commentator of the Manusamhitā, the illustrious Medhātithi, who is supposed to have flourished at a date not later than the tenth century A. D.∗

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∗ Cf. Ch. VI, Infra.

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We have endeavoured to consider the factors that were at work in the upbuilding of the fabric of Hindu political ideas. We may next examine the consequences of the regional and cultural influences under which these theories grew up into a system. And first we have to observe that Hindu political thought found throughout its history its chosen seat in Northern India and the Deccan, the home-land of Indo-Aryan culture. It was a singular irony of fate that the Dravidian races of the South, who built in the later Hindu period powerful States founded on the bedrock of self-governing village assemblies, failed to make any notable original contribution to the stock of political ideas. Indeed the Southern races would appear in the light of their earliest literary records to have been from the first profoundly impressed with the ideas of the political thinkers of the North. Thus the Hindu theories of the State bore the stamp of the creative genius of the Indo-Aryans and were coloured by their distinctive ideals and experiences. Now a remarkable feature of the Indo-Aryan culture was, as we have said above, the enormous, though not exclusive, hold acquired by religion over the thoughts and actions of men. To the Hindu, however, religion was not merely a code of dogmas or a system of religious exercises, but it was a synthesis of life. It therefore followed that the rules of public administration along with their underlying theories formed an integral part of the Brahmanical canon. But further, the Brāhmaṇa sacred literature presented from first to last the only continuous record of Hindu political speculation. The other systems were either, as in the case of the political sections of the Buddhist canon and the Arthaśāstra, finally swamped or merged in the ocean of Brāhmaṇa thought after enjoying a brief span of existence, or else they were like the Jaina works on polity virtual copies of some of the more advanced phases of Brāhmaṇa speculation.

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The peculiar genius of the Indo-Aryans left its impress upon another aspect of Hindu political thought, namely its intensely realistic character. The political ideas of the Hindus were of the earth, earthy, and it was only on rare occasions that they were tempted to soar into the region of ideal polities. A remarkable instance of this exception to the general rule is the picture of the Universal Monarch (Chakravartin) in the Buddhist canon. The Hindu political thinkers indeed were not as a rule closet philosophers to whom it is permitted to indulge in dreams of blissful Utopias. They figured either in the role of teachers of the Sacred Law which was binding upon the king in every act of his life, and was enforced by the highest moral and spiritual sanctions. Or else, as makers of the Arthaśāstra, they claimed to lay down rules of policy that were founded upon the accumulated wisdom of past masters, and which princes and ministers were enjoined to lay to heart and practise in their lives. Thus the Hindu theories of the State were mainly concerned with concrete problems of administration such as the conduct of the king, the choice of ministers, as well as internal and foreign policy. Even the abstract speculations relating to the origin of kingship and the like seem to have been the battle-cries in the strife of rival schools of thought concerning such vital issues as the relative rights of the king and the subjects.

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We have, lastly, to examine the influence exercised upon Hindu political thought by certain specific types of polity to which the conditions in Northern India gave a peculiar prominence. Though republican constitutions figured, as we have said, upon the stage of Indian history, it was the monarchic State that dominated the scene. In the paucity of other data the most complete account of the Indian monarchies is to be derived from the literature of the sacred canon and the secular Arthaśāstra which reflects, as we have seen, actual and not ideal conditions of political existence. It is not our intention in the present place to mention all the distinctive features of the standard Indian polity, but to specify those characteristics alone that stamped themselves upon the system of Hindu thought. The monarchic States, to begin with, ranged in size from governments of small extent to large empires stretching, in the hyperbolical language of the conventional description, to the boundary of the whole earth as far as the sea. It was however an index of the strong disruptive forces constantly at work that the small States comprised in the traditional States-system (maṇḍala) preponderated over the empires. Further, the monarchic governments usually involved a central administrative machinery superimposed upon the subordinate administrations of the district, the town, and the village.

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The other features of the Indian State were concerned with the position of the priestly and the ruling classes as well as of the king with reference to the rest. The Brāhmaṇas indeed occupy from the first a very important place in the society and the State. In the Brahmanical canon not only are the person and property of the priestly order protected by the severest penalties but they are armed with a formidable array of immunities which includes the exemption from taxation as well as from capital punishment ∗. To the same favoured order is assigned in the later works the right of filling the panel of judges in the royal court of justice in a partial measure as well as the highest seat in the council of ministers. Above all the Brāhmaṇa has the God-given right of spritual teaching and of guardianship of the Sacred Law which embraces every section of the community together with every act of their lives. The King's Chaplain (purohita), in particular, has not only the task of ministering to the spiritual needs of his master, but he also stands in the front rank of State officials, for to him belongs the function of warding off by means of his charms and spells the dangers threatening the safety of the king and the kingdom. It is remarkable that much of these ideas of the Brāhmaṇa's social and civic status is implicitly accepted in the systems lying outside the Brahmanical canon.

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But however high the pretensions of the Brāhmaṇa might be carried, the essential incompatibility of his functions with those of the ruling and the fighting Kṣatriya was seldom, if ever, lost sight of. The Arthaśāstra works, which are in essence practical manuals of statecraft, merely emphasise this divergence by their significant exclusion of the purohita from the list of component factors (aṅgas) of government (rājyam). Thus the Brāhmaṇas did not monopolise the position of vantage with respect to the other classes, but they shared this privilege with the Kṣatriya. Turning to another point, we have to observe that the king who was the Kṣatriya par excellence was not held to be an irresponsible despot. In the system of the Brahmanical canon which forms the groundwork of the whole, the king was indeed entrusted with the highest executive functions. But the concept of the Sacred Law (dharma) which claimed to bind every section of the community involved a complete separation of these functions from the function of interpreting the Law which was reserved for the Brāhmaṇas.

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Further the rules of the Law which derived their origin from Divine Revelation embodied in the Vedas imposed upon the king a bundle of duties whose observance was enforced by the highest moral and spiritual sanctions.∗ Among these duties was reckoned that of respecting the traditional rights of the individuals as well as of collective groups,—rights which were indeed invested with an imperishable authority by their inclusion in the Sacred Canon. The Brāhmaṇa canonists, for instance, lay down with scrupulous care the heads of the government revenue as well as the proportion payable under each head, and they mention classes of people that are altogether to be exempted from taxation. Further, the canonical writers require the king to respect the customs of diverse communal units and even to give legal effect to the rules passed by such bodies.†

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∗ Cf. Gaut. VIII 12-13; Baudh. I, 10, 18, 17; Āpast. II 10, 10, etc.

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∗ Cf. K. P. Jayaswal (*Calcutta Weekly Notes*, Vol. XVI. pp. xix-xxi; *Introduction to Hindu Polity*, pp. 17-18).
* The constitutional significance of the rules of taxation in the Brahmanical canon was first pointed out by Mr. K. P. Jayaswal (*Introduction to Hindu Polity*, Modern Review, Calcutta, May---September, 1913). We may quote here the disappointing example of two other ancient peoples showing how a complete void in the theory of taxation resulted from the absence of individual rights with reference to the State. "The whole constitution of the societies of Greece and Rome," says Prof. Bastable (*Public Finance*, p. 17), "was based on conceptions directly opposed to those under which our modern doctrines have been formed. With them the State was placed above and before the individual, who was bound to sacrifice himself unreservedly for his country. To persons holding such a belief the question of just taxation would appear to be of trifling importance."

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† Cf. Gautama's Dharmaśāstra XI 20-21 : "The laws of countries, castes, and families, which are not opposed to the (sacred) records, have also authority. Cultivators, traders, herdsmen, moneylenders, and artizans, (have authority to lay down rules) for their respective classes." S. B. E. Vol. II, p. 234. For a historical and critical survey of this subject, vide R. C. Majumdar, (*Corporate life in Ancient India*, p. 6 ff.).

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Such were the types of polity that dominated the stage in ancient India and it is not too much to state that their principal features shaped much of the Hindu political thought. Thus the theories concerning the nature and conditions of republican States from a small but by no means insignificant chapter in the history of Hindu speculation. But by far the largest body of political ideas of the Hindu writers is concerned with the monarchies. The Hindu political theory, indeed, is essentially the theory of the monarchic State. The monarchies, however, which formed the norm and type of polity in the systems of the Hindu thinkers were ordinarily small States comprised in the traditional maṇḍala, for it was only in exceptional cases, as in the system of the Buddhist canon, that the office of the Emperor was treated as a topic of speculation. Further, the high position occupied by the Brāhmaṇa as well as the Kṣatriya had its reflection in the doctrine of joint lordship of these powers over the rest. This in its turn became the occasion for a remarkable group of theories regarding the mutual relations of the above classes. The Hindu theories of kingship, lastly, were a product of the rights and duties associated with this office. Thus the system of individual and communal rights with reference to the State seems to have given rise to what may be called the fee-theory of taxation, according to which the revenue was the price paid by the subjects to the king for the privilege of protection. This famous maxim underlay the theories of kingship in the Buddhist as well as in the Brahmanical canon : it gave the cue to the Buddhist theory of Social Contract which was distinguished by its remarkable insistence upon the respective rights and duties of the king and the subjects, and it was used to counteract the consequences of the doctrine of Divine creation of the king and respectful submission of the subjects laid down in the Brahmanical canon.

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We have endeavoured to describe the salient features of Hindu political thought following from the peculiar conditions of the land and character of its people. It now remains to observe that the historical treatment of this body of ideas is subject to the limitations imposed by the dominant characteristics of Hindu literary craftsmanship. We have to mention, in the first place, the general tendency of the Hindu writers to connect their works with schools and systems instead of making these the expression of their own minds. Indeed it appears that the personality of the individual is in this case merged in the common tradition and collective unity of the school. Thus in the field of political thought it is the Vedic theological schools and the schools of the Sacred Tradition (Smriti) as well as those of the Buddhist canon and the secular Arthaśāstra, that have been the nurseries of the most copious and original ideas. On the other hand, individual authors as such have made a relatively small contribution to the common stock of thought. Further, these writers are in most cases so enveloped in a mist of obscurity that they are no better than names. This general tendency towards the preponderance of schools is no doubt connected with an essential feature of Hindu culture, consisting in its emphasis of the communal consciousness at the expense of individual experience. Allied to this tendency is another characteristic feature of Hindu literature, namely, the indefiniteness of its chronology. It is indeed a striking fact that notwithstanding the immense strides that have been taken in the study of Indian antiquities, the dates of most of the literary compositions are still open to serious divergences of opinion among scholars. A typical instance is furnished by the political treatise of Kāmandaka which has been assigned no less than three district dates ∗ ranging from the third to the seventh centuries A. D. In other cases, as in the classical instance of the works of the Brahminical sacred literature, the utmost exertions of scholars have succeeded merely in fixing the dates within the limits of two or even more centuries. It is obvious that in these circumstances a strict chronological arrangement is out of the question. It therefore becomes necessary to study the subject in the order of development of parallel schools and systems, and to rest the whole upon the frame-work of broad chronological divisions representing successive stages of its growth. Another result of the twofold tendency which has been noticed above, is that we are driven to interpret the Hindu theories of the State ordinarily without reference to the special conditions of time, space and personal experience, in which they doubtless had their origin.

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∗ 3rd or 4th century A. D. (Jacobi, quoted in I. A. 1912) ; 6th century A.D. (I. A. 1912); 7th century A. D. (I. A. 1911). [^*] Cf. Macdonell, *Vedic Index*, Preface, pp. viii-ix.

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Such, then, are the lines along which the methodical treatment of Hindu political theories has to proceed. We have, in conclusion, to add a few words concerning the dates of the various original authorities that have been utilised in the preparation of this volume. The beginnings of political speculation among the Hindus, it will be observed later, occur in the Vedic Saṁhitās and the Brāhmaṇas. Regarding the dates of these works, the opinions of scholars vary so widely that it is impossible to mention one commanding general acceptance. On the whole, however, it appears desirable to place the works in question in the latter half of the second millennium before Christ and the earlier half of the first. The two following stages in the history of Hindu political thought, those of growth and maturity, are represented by a rich variety of systems consisting of the Brahminical Dharmasūtras as well as the Manusamhitā and the Mahābhārata, the Buddhist canonical and post-canonical treatises, and the literature of Arthaśāstra. The Dharmasūtras are assigned by Prof. Jolly to the fourth, fifth and sixth, centuries before Christ.† The Manusamhitā is placed by Bühler in the period between the second century B. C. and the second century A. D. ‡ The Mahābhārata, in the opinion of a leading Western authority, belongs to the period from the second century B. C. to the second century A. D., or with a wider margin, from the fourth century B. C. to the fourth century A. D.

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§ The Pali Buddhist canon for the most part falls within the limits of the fourth century B. C. ‖ The only important post-canonical work of the Buddhists which is treated in this volume is the Chatuhśatikā of Āryadeva assigned to the second century A.D.¶ The Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya is ascribed by the unanimous literary tradition of the Hindus to the famous minister of the founder of the imperial Maurya dynasty (acc. circa 322 B. C.). This view, however, while accepted by some Western scholars, has been rejected by others.∗ In the present work we have, without pinning our faith either to the Hindu tradition or to its Western criticism, placed the work at about the end of the fourth century before Christ. Hence the early schools and authors of the Arthaśāstra have been traced back to the immediately preceding period. The last stage in the evolution of Hindu political theories is marked by the treatises ascribed to Kāmandaka, Brihaspati and Śukra, the Jaina works on polity and law, as well as the later Brahminical canon consisting of the minor Smritis and the Purāṇas, the commentaries on the Smritis and the Digests of the Sacred Law. The work of Kāmandaka, as we have mentioned above, is still a chronological puzzle, but it may be placed with confidence in the period from 400 A. D. to 600 A. D.

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The Brihaspatisūtras is essentially an archaic work, but one of its historical allusions, it will be seen later, brings down its date in its existing form at least to the twelfth century A. D. Like the work of Kāmandaka the Śukranītisāra is of uncertain date, but reasons will be shown in the proper place for putting it down in the late mediaeval period. Of the Jaina works with which we are concerned, the Nītivākyāmṛitam is an aphorisitc treatise written by Somadeva who was the *protege* of a feudatory Chief subject to a Western Indian potentate Kriṣṇa III (fl. 10th century A. D.). The Laghu Arhannīti was written by the well-known Jaina scholar and divine Hemachandra (1089-1173 A.D.) at the behest of his royal patron Kumārapāla of Guzerat. As regards the later Brahminical canon, the minor Smṛitis are assigned by Prof. Jolly dates ranging from the fourth to the seventh centuries A. D.∗ To the same period belong the larger Purāṇas in their existing form. Of the great commentators on the Smṛitis, Medhātithi Vijñāneśvara and Aparārka belong, as will be shown in the sequel, to the tenth and the eleventh centuries after Christ, while Mādhava distinguished himself as the minister of the first king of the famous House of Vijaynagar in the early part of the 14th century. The two mediæval Digests of the Sacred Law that have been taken up for examination in this work are the Bhagavantabhāskara and the Vīramitrodaya.

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Both of these are voluminous works dealing with the manifold branches of Hindu law and ritual (āchāra). We are concerned with their political sections alone which are styled the Nītimayūkha and the Rājanītiprakāśa respectively.

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† *Recht und Sitte*, pp. 3-7 (quoted, R. C. Majumdar, *Corporate Life in Ancient India*, Preface, p. iii).

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‡ S. B. E. Vol. XXV, Introduction, p. cxvii.

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§ E. W. Hopkins, Art. Mahābhārata in *Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics*, Vol. VII, p. 325 ; cf. Ibid, *Great Epic of India*, pp. 397-398.

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‖ Vide Oldenberg and Rhys Davids, S. B. E. Vol. XIII, Introduction, p. xxiii ; Rhys Davids, S. B. E. Vol. XI, General Introduction, pp. xix-xx.

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¶ Vide Preface to Mm. Haraprasād Śāstri's edition of the Chatuhśatikā.

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∗ Hillebrandt held the view that the Athaśāstra was produced by a school of Kauṭilya's disciples. His arguments were controverted by Prof. Jacobi (vide the English translation of the original German article in I. A. June—July 1918). Jacobi's view in its turn is rejected by Prof. A. B. Keith who holds (*J. R. A. S.* 1916, pp. 130-137) that the Arthaśāstra was written by one of Kauṭilya's followers.

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∗ *Recht und Sitte*, pp. 21, 23, 27, 28 (quoted, R. C. Majumdar, *Corporate Life in Ancient India*, Preface, p. iii).
* Mayne, *Hindu Law and Usage*, 7th edition, p. 29.

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The author of the former work, Nīlakaṇṭha, is said to have flourished about 1600 A. D., while Mitramiśra who wrote the latter treatise lived at the court of the Central India Rāja Vīrasiṃha who is chiefly remembered in history as the murderer of Abul Fazl, the minister of Akbar. †

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† Cf. West and Bühler's *Digest*, p. 22, quoted, Ibid p. 29. [^*] *Vedic Index*, Vol. I, pp. 269-270 (correcting Zimmer, *Alt. Leben*, pp. 159-160). Also compare Ibid I 245 ; II 306. [^†] Zimmer, op. cit. pp. 176-177 (quoted, *Vedic Index*, Vol. II, p. 216).

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