Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c18.60

c18.60

mistake when the arrangement would work no more, with the result that nobody obeyed the law without sanction; when the law would not rule, the citizens of this form of government took to monarchy. I was inclined to regard this "non-ruler" (*arājaka*) constitution as a mere fiction of Hindu politicians who, I thought, wanted to invent it as an argument against republican theories of social contract and rule of law. But the Jaina Sūtra compels me to take it as a constitutional experiment which had been tried more than once in this country. The Sūtra mentions the form as a living institution.¹ The group where this constitution occurs is composed of all real and historical forms of government. It gives: