A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.76

c8.s3.76

The above view of the king's office as subserving the primary needs and interests of the people might have sufficed, as it had done on a smaller scale in Gautama's Dharmaśāstra † to support the creed of royal authority. Nevertheless some of the teachers whom we are now considering invoke, in further justification of the king's authority over his subjects, a notion familiar to the Vedic Saṁhitās and the Brāhmaṇas, the notion, namely, of the king's divine nature. In the present instance, however, as we hope to show now, the latter idea is interpreted, mainly on the basis of equivalence of the king's functions to those of the deities. Thus the two principles with which we have now to deal centre equally on the idea of essential importance of the king's office. Another point to be noted in this connexion—and here again the advance of the Arthaśāstra thought in comparison with that of the Dharmasūtras is unmistakable—is that the obligations of the subjects with reference to their ruler are conceived in the present case to be not merely negative but also positive in character.