Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c39.18

c39.18

This is urged by the official spy in defence of the new king and was intended to support him, in reply to those who cited the social contract theory of kingship.¹ If there had been a theory of divine origin already currrent, it would have been cited at once. But no divine origin of king is preached in the passage of the Artha-Śāstra nor is any absolutism preached there. The divine punishment mentioned in the hired speech refers to the consequence of sin which in every case is supposed to be visited with divine punishment; and treason was always regarded as a sin. The Government spy is not advancing any theory of absolutism. He is only drawing attention to the position of the king as such, resembling that of Indra and Yama, and to the sin which would be caused if the people went against the king. The author of the Mānava Code made his king a Divinity itself, to despise which was to be punished with powers of absolutism. And he preached perfect absolutism.²