A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.23

c6.23

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.