A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.35

c9.35

object in the present case is evidently not to lay down a philosophical theory of kingship, but to justify on as broad a basis as possible the king's jurisdiction over his subjects. It would seem to follow from this that the idea of the king's divine nature is more likely to occur in Kauṭilya as an appendage of the theory of the king's origin than as an integral feature thereof. Nor are we left to depend upon mere surmise in support of our criticism. Doctrines essentially similar to that of Kauṭilya, involving in other words the equivalence of the king's functions and attributes to those of the deities are not unknown to the other teachers of the Arthaśāstra whose views are quoted in the Śāntiparvan. In none of these cases is the king held to be invested with a sacred character by virtue of the popular authority. The authors indeed are completely silent about the theory of the king's elective origin. In these circumstances it seems more reasonable to hold that Kauṭilya adopted the current idea of the king's divine nature than attribute to him an altogether unique interpretation of the same. Regarding the alleged contrast between Kauṭilya's theory and that of the Brahminical canon we agree with the Italian scholar in holding that the king is often conceived by the Brāhmaṇa canonists to be a divine emanation. This idea occurs, for instance, in the Manusamhitā, the Mahābhārata, the later Smritis and the Purāṇas (Chapters IV-V, infra). Along with this notion, however, there occurs in these works, as we hope to show later on, the notion of Kauṭilya, namely that the king is a god by virtue of his functions.