Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c36.59

c36.59

§ 217. Says the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa :—² "Thereby "Varuṇa the protector of the law makes him the protector of "the law, *and that truly is a supreme state when one "is protector of the law*, for whosoever attains to the "supreme state, to him, they come in causes "of law." Here is a new theory of the monarchical days when the Brāhmaṇas were written. The sacred formula only contemplates the protection of the law as a necessary duty of the king, but the commentator takes it in the sense that one of the chief features of a 'full-fledged' state must be that the law should be administered by the king or his officers ('for him they come in causes of law'). The old theory had been that the law of the community was administered by the community. The new theory was operating in actual life in the time of the Jātakas and it was fully extended in the imperial days of the Mauryas, when salaried judges not only dispensed royal justice but also administered royal laws.