Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c28.20

c28.20

§ 176. It seems that the Kaṭhas and the Saubhūtas regarded the individual as mere part of the state. By himself he did not exist. Hence they claimed an absolute right over the child born to individuals. It is evident that other republics did not subscribe to this view. They, as evidenced by coins, take gaṇa, the Government, as distinct from the community; the individual is not lost in the state. At the same time the unity between the two is so complete that the two are very nearly identical. The extreme case of individualism on the other hand, was the theory of the Arājaka state, the No-ruler-state.⁴ Government itself was regarded by the theorists of that class of state as an evil. No one was vested with executive power. Only law was to rule, and the only sanction they prescribed for one found guilty of crime was ostracism. The sovereignty of the individual was not to be delegated to any one man or a body of men. Of course, a state founded on such a basis, to be practical, must have been exceedingly small. Such states, however, did exist in Hindu India as noticed in the Jaina sūtra referred to above.mark The monarchist may very well exclaim: ‘No Government is more miserable than the ‘Arājaka Government.¹ If a powerful citizen obeys the (law) ‘it is all well, but if he rebels, he can work total destruction.’²