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Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c32.s2: P. 6—Works of the 4th—5th cen. A. C. and the date of the Kamandakiya

Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c32.s2

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P. 6—Works of the 4th—5th cen. A. C. and the date of the Kamandakiya

c32.s2.1

Quotations in the Raja-N. Ratnakara indicate that there was also a Naradiya Raja-niti. (See *Introduction* to the R N R, 1924, p. e.).

c32.s2.2

Nārada figures as a teacher of political wisdom in the Mahā-Bhārata (Sabha Parvan), and he is not known to Kamandaka. The Naradiya thus probably came into existence before the sixth century and after Kamandaka.

c32.s2.3

Kāmandaka cannot be put in the 8th cen. as done by Jolly and Winternitz (Jolly's A Ś., 46). It is earlier than the Maha-Bharata for the reasons (1) that the latter knows it, (2) that the Artha-Sāstra book of the Great Rishis which was lost when the M. Bh. (ŚP.) was written, had been used by Kam. (as pointed out above, p. 6, *), and (3) the general style (cf. the Narada Smriti)¹ indicating Gupta times. (4) The known date of Bhavabhūti helps us further. Bhavabhūti as ably shown by MM. Gaṇapati Sastrī (AŚ., II, Intro., p. 7) knew his work; not only he knew Kamandaka but his audience also must have known his work as a well-established authority to be able to follow and enjoy the character "Kāmandakī" like the "Buddharakshitā" and "Avalokitā." Kamandaka must have published his work a few centuries before Bhavabhūti (first half of the 8th cen.). The datum of the M Bh. would place his lower limit in the fifth century A.C. Its earlier limit probably is the Tantrākhyāyika which does not know it. The interval between the AŚ. and Kāmandaka is large, for not only several subjects and topics in the AŚ. have become in Kam.'s time antiquated enough to be left out, a new group of authorities, unknown to the AŚ., had intervened.

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¹ See the monitary system of Nārada (App. 56—60) which extends up to the Panjab and knows Dīnāra.

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There is a revival of the tradition of Chandragupta Maurya in Gupta times. Royal parents name their sons after him (thrice). Viśākhadatta compares him with Vishṇu in his play written under one of the Chandraguptas of the Gupta dynasty (I. A. 1913 p. 265). Chandraguptan laws in the Kauṭilya are closely reproduced in the Narada Smriti. Chandragupta's Artha-Śāstra is versified and adapted in the Kamandakiya Nītisāra. There is an ambition, partly realized, of founding a large empire from Paṭaliputra like that of Chandragupta Maurya. Kalidasa, a Gutpa poet, says that the country becomes *Rājanvatī*, 'possessed of a just king', only on account of the Magadhan emperor (Raghuvamśa).²

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² * To say this he has even to commit an anachronism, making the Magadha monarchy which came into existence only with Vasu (J. B. O. R. S., I) contemporary with Raghu.

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P. 6.—Pushkara.

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He figures also in the political science dialogue in the Vishṇudharmottara (II) Probably he is only an ideal person and no author.

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P. 6. 14th—18th cen. Digests.

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To this class is to be added Vāchaspati Miśra's Rājādharma (See *Intro.* to R N R., p x.) The commentary on the Nītivākyāmṛita, (the date of which must be earlier than its MS. copied in the 1463, *ibid.*) may be included in the class. The commentator does not restrict himself to the orthodox Dharma Śāstra view. He, trying to give all the original sources of Somadeva, really gives a small Digest of Artha-Śāstra.

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P. 8—Works in Vernaculars.

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Lallū Lāl wrote a Hindi book based on the Hitopadeśa and the Pañchatantra and called it ‘Rājanīti.’

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Page 15—Village fined.

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See Vasiṣhṭha Dharma Śāstra, III. 4—

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शश्वदाक्रमणोन्मत्तानां वधो भैषज्यमादिताः।
सं ग्रामं दण्डयेद्राजा चौरभक्तप्रदो हि सः॥

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P. 16— न सा सभा।

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It is given also by Nārada (I. 18).

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P. 26—*Gaṇa*.

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The Vedic use of gaṇa is in the sense of ‘company of soldiers’— व्रातं व्रातं गणं गणम् (Ṛ. V., III. 26, 6).

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P. 42—State-arms of the Republics.

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*Lāñchha* itself may be from *Laksh* with what is termed by Grierson as ‘spontaneous nasalisation’ (JRAS, 1922, pp. 381 ff.).

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For *Aṅka* see ‘kṛita-Narendraṅkaṁ śastravāraṇamāyudhāgāraṁ praveśayet’ in the A Ś., V. 3, p. 247.

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Page 52—Decisions on rolls (Book of Precedents).

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The Jātaka also knows such books of precedents. See J. III. 292, wherein the law-court precedents are entered: “*vinicchaye potthakaṁ lekhāpetvā.* Probably Vasiśhṭha also refers to precedents in XIX. 10.

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P. 53—Ashṭa-kulaka.

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See EI, XV, 136, the Ashṭa-kula-adhikaraṇas as town corporation officials, and note in App. D, on Part II, pp. 105-6 below.

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