Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c38.62

c38.62

§ 243. By the inscription of the Emperor Khāravela it is evident that Hindu Coronation could not take place before the completion of the twenty-fourth year of the King-elect. One branch of the Jaina literature asserts that Vikrama was crowned in his 25th year. This was the age when ordinarily a Hindu (e.g. Śvetaketu) was supposed to have completed his academic career in the period of Upanishads. The existence of the constitutional law for coronation at the age of twenty-five which the inscription of Khāravela points out, is confirmed by the Bṛihaspati-Sūtra, I. 89, *pañcha-viṁśativarshaṁ yāvat krīḍā-vidyām vyasanāt kuryāt ata uttaram arthārjanam*,² which agrees almost literally with the record of Khāravela.