A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.19

c8.s3.19

In the course of our survey of the ideas of kingship in the Dharmasūtras, we have seen how one of the priestly authors treated the office of the Brāhmaṇa in conjunction with that of the king, and declared both of them to be in effect the foundation of individual existence as well as of social order. This dictum, we think, is important as furnishing, probably for the first time, a theoretical argument in favour of the old canonical doctrine of the joint authority of the king and the Brāhmaṇa over all the rest, Regarding the mutual relations of these powers, we may first observe that Vasiṣṭha quotes with approval the old Vedic text declaring Soma to be the king of the Brāhmaṇas, while Gautama expresses the idea more clearly by saying that the king is master of all with the exception of the Brāhmaṇas.[^asterisk] Not only do our authors hold, after the fashion of the Brāhmaṇa works, that the priestly power is independent of the kingly power, but they also make in the earlier manner the one superior to the other. Speaking of the respective functions of the king and the Brāhmaṇa, Vasiṣṭha says in one place, “The three (lower) classes shall live according to the teaching of the Brāhmaṇa. The Brāhmaṇa shall declare their duties, and the king shall govern them accordingly.”dagger The king, then, is as it were, merely a magistrate charged with the duty of carrying out the law laid down by the Brāhmaṇas. After this, it is perhaps unnecessary to mention that Gautama quotes in one passage a Vedic text to the effect that Kṣatriyas who are assisted by the Brāhmaṇas prosper and do not fall into distress.[^ddagger] And yet it is noticeable that, perhaps owing to the greater moderation of the priestly pretensions, the authors do not press the theory of the Brāhmaṇa's superiority to the point reached in some of the Brāhmaṇa texts, namely that the priestly power is the source of the kingly power.