Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c18.49

c18.49

§101. The Arājaka or 'non-ruler'¹ was an idealistic constitution which came to be the object of derision of political writers of Hindu India. The ideal of this constitution was that Law was to be taken as the ruler and there should be no man-ruler. The basis of the state was considered to be a mutual agreement or social contract between the citizens. This was an extreme democracy almost Tolstoïan in ideal. The Mahā-Bhārata² from which the above description is taken, ridicules the constitution and says that the framers of this legal state found out their