A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7.33

c7.33

We may pause here to describe one important limitation involved in the above theory of Divine Right. In the passages quoted above from the Vedic Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas it will be observed that the king is never declared to be a god by virtue of hereditary descent. The king, then, has no indefeasible hereditary right following as a corollary from his divinity. Indeed, the Brāhmaṇa texts, purporting to explain the great ceremonies of royal consecration, distinctly affirm the human origin of the king.† We shall see in a future chapter how the denial of the indefeasible right of the king becomes a cardinal feature of the theories of Divine Right formulated in the later canon.