A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.12

c6.12

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."†