The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society c12.5

c12.5

The texts are unanimous in assigning the protection of the people and the maintenance of the order of the world or even of the whole universe to the king. He is then easily exalted to be the world order itself, dharma incarnate,³ or at the very least, equal to ten wise men learned in the Veda.⁴ So whatever the king does is the norm⁵ and all dharma is subsumed in the *rājadharma*.⁶ A kingless country therefore comes to ruin, and one should not settle in such a place.⁷ But on the other hand, the king—not just the unrighteous king, but the king in general—is roundly abominated. That instead of being exalted as the benign protector of his people he is simply the "eater" of the people who devours everything he can lay hands on is already a cliché in the Vedic prose texts.⁸ Later texts enlarge upon this point by stating, for instance, that ten slaughterhouses equal one oil press, ten oil presses one tavern, ten taverns one brothel, finally giving the ultimate prize for wickedness to the king, who is as evil as ten brothels; or the king is put on a par with a butcher who keeps a hundred thousand slaughterhouses.⁹ It is then hardly surprising to find him mentioned together with other calamities like floods, fires, and thieves.¹⁰