A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7.35

c7.35

Such was the famous theory of the nature of the king’s office which was formally proclaimed in one of the Brāhmaṇas. The rise of this theory seems to have synchronised with the completion of a general change in the Indo-Aryan social organisation. This was nothing less than the transformation of the original tribal society into the political community, or the State. The steps leading to this momentous development may perhaps be discovered by piecing together the fragments of evidence from the Vedic Saṃhitās and the Brāhmaṇas, and by interpreting them on the analogy of kindred changes among other peoples. Already in the Rigveda we mark a tendency towards union of the small tribal units into larger aggregates. A hymn of this work¹ celebrates the well-known horse-sacrifice (aśwamedha) ceremony, which was associated in the later canon with the office of the Emperor. Further, the Rigveda mentions titles indicating the position of the overlord, and implying a higher status than that of the mere king (rājan). Such are the terms samrāj, ekarāja and adhirāja the first of which is likewise used as an honorific designation of the leading deities of the Vedic pantheon like Indra and Varuṇa.² The institution of overlordship along with the imperial ceremony of Aśwamedha, obviously implies a more or less close political union of a number of tribes, and it may have occasionally led to tribal amalgamations. The Brāhmaṇa period witnessed the rise of permanent leagues of tribes bearing new names. Thus the Purus and the Bharatas are mentioned as separate tribes in the Rigveda. But in the Brāhmaṇas they are united into a common people bearing the historic designation of the Kurus.∗ In a similar manner two other tribes called Turvaśa and Krivi in the Rigveda, become merged in the Brāhmaṇas into the united Pañchāla people.† Further, the Brāhmaṇas often join together the Kurus and the Pañchālas in such a manner as to suggest their amalgamation into one single people.‡