A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c7.4

c7.4

It would thus appear that the early history of Hindu political thought was comprised in the oldest literature of the Sacred Canon and intertwined with its concepts. Nevertheless this must have been the natural offshoot of the social and political institutions of the people at the dawn of their history. It is therefore desirable to present a preliminary survey of the primitive condition of the Indo-Aryans before proceeding to consider their theories of the State. The Rigveda shows the Indo-Aryans to be passing through a stage of transition : the tribal society is being transformed into the aggregate of tribes or the ‘Folk.’ It is with this earlier stage that we are concerned in the present place. The Rigveda specifies and describes a number of tribes that are included within the Aryan pale. Such are the Purus, the Bharatas, the Tritsus, the Yadus, the Gandhāris, the Uśīnaras, the Anus and the Druhyus. Further, the Rigveda has preserved a picture, though traced in dim outlines, of the constitution of the tribal society in its time. The generic term ‘jana’ was applied to a tribe or people. The ‘jana’ was divided into a number of social groups called ‘viś,’ but the division of the ‘viś’ into a number of ‘grāmas’ is doubtful, since the ‘grāma’ might comprise different ‘viśes,’ or coincide with a ‘viś,’ or contain only a part of a ‘viś.’ The ‘viś,’ moreover, might mean either a territorial division, or else a communal group. The government of each tribal unit was normally vested in a monarch (rājan). It has indeed been held that oligarchical forms of government were not unknown among the Indo-Aryans. But this view has been challenged by others on the ground that the passage bearing on this question means merely that the nobles could be called rājan.∗ There can, however, be no reasonable doubt that the normal constitution prevailing among the Indo-Aryans was a monarchy in which the king's power was checked by the tribal assemblies (sabhā and samiti). The tribal society, moreover, was divided at an early period into a number of classes. The earliest and the most fundamental division that arose in its midst was undoubtedly the distinction between the conquering Aryans and the conquered aborigines (Dasyus or Dāsas). The division into the four standard classes of Hindu society, however, occurs in one of the admittedly latest hymns of the Rigveda, while in other parts even the titles of these are seldom mentioned. It was therefore believed at one time that the division into castes was unknown in the Rigveda and was introduced in later times.† This theory has been rejected at the present day in view of the fact that the Rigveda itself points to the presence of all the essential elements of the caste system of later times.‡