A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.128

c8.s3.128

We have endeavoured in the early part of this chapter to describe the two groups of political ideas that derived their origin from as many independent fountain-heads. These ideas, as we have seen, are associated, in the case of the Dharmasūtras with the first ordered presentation of the sum of the king's duties, and in that of the Arthaśāstra with the first systematic exposition of the rules of public administration in a monarchic State. The Buddhist canonical works with which we are concerned in the present place, mostly came into being at a somewhat later period than either of the above, and they deal incidentally with a markedly limited range of topics of the State such as principally, the origin of the king's office and the conditions of success in republics. And yet the Buddhist thinkers open, we think, new vistas of thought which justly entitle them to rank with the authors of the Dharmasūtras and the Arthaśāstra as the makers of Hindu political theory.