A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.71

c8.s3.71

The theories of kingship laid down by the teachers whom we are now considering, it seems to us, carry into fuller detail such ideas as are hinted at in some of the Dharmasūtras. For while these authors emphasize on the one hand the principle of monarchical authority, they inculcate on the other hand rules and principles tending to check the abuses of the royal power. We have thus, in the first place, a number of passages stressing the enormous importance of the king’s office from the point of view of the needs and interests of the people. As the monarchic State is the norm and type of polity in Hindu political theory, these passages might, we think, be also taken to embody the authors’ view of the function of the State in relation to the individual. We shall commence with a short extract quoted by Bhīṣma from Bhārgava’s (Śukra’s) discourse on kingly policy. "One should first have the king, then the wife and afterwards wealth, for if there were no king, how (could one enjoy) the wife and the wealth ?"¹ To put the main idea of this passage into the technical language of political theory, it means that the king's office is the security of the institutions of family and property. This idea is brought out more fully in a longer extract of the Mahābhārata. In Chapter LXVIII of the Sāntiparvan we are told how Vasumanas put to the sage Brihaspati the very suggestive query, "Through whom do the creatures flourish and decay ?" In reply the sage describes in burning language both the evils happening in the king's absence, and the blessings following from his existence. The duties of the people, he says, have their root in the king; the people do not devour one another through the fear of the king alone; as creatures would plunge in dense darkness owing to the non-appearance of the sun and the moon, as fishes in shallow water and birds in a safe place would fight one another and assuredly perish, so would these people die without the king, and they would sink into utter darkness like cattle without the herdsman. If the king were not to afford protection, property (lit. the sense 'this is mine') would not exist; neither wife nor child nor wealth would be possessed; everywhere wealth would be stolen;