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Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c49: Chapter XXXVI: Character of the Hindu Monarchy

Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c49

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English

Chapter XXXVI: Character of the Hindu Monarchy

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§ 356. It would be evident from the above discussion of Mīmāṁsā, from the theory of taxation, from the coronation oath and other points noticed above that the **State under Monarchy** in the eyes of the Hindu was a **Trust.** The object of the trust is clearly stated in the Śruti text which had to be repeated at every Coronation: *"This State to Thee (is given)—Thou art the* "director, regulator, firm bearer (of this responsibility)—*for* "(the good of) *agriculture, for well-being, for prosperity, for growth* "(of the people), (that is) *for success*."¹

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¹ *The White Yajurveda*, IX. 22— "This is thy Sovereignty. Thou art the ruler, thou art controller, thou art firm and steadfast. "Thee for land-culture, thee for peace and quiet, thee for wealth, thee for increase of our substance." —R. T. H. Griffith's translation.

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The Trust, the State, thus created was for the prosperity of the People. It is this underlying principle which has been expressed in later literature in so many forms, culminating in the fixed maxim that the king is the servant of the people getting his wages. If the object of the trust is not fulfilled, the trustee is "to be shunned like a leaky ship on the Sea."²

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² Mahā-Bhārata, Śānti P. LVII, 43.

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The *telos* of the Hindu monarchical state brings us to the great distinguishing feature of that state. The end of the state was to secure peace and prosperity of the people.

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Sacerdotal duties were never imposed upon the king. He was never a priest even in the Vedic age. By prosperity was meant, of course, the immediate material prosperity : the state was instituted for *land-culture, wealth, etc.* That prosperity, which was secured by a correct administration and justice, was regarded to bring about moral prosperity in its train as a corollary.

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§ 357. Again, the Hindu Monarchical State was essentially a civil state. Standing armies appear as early as the 6th century B. C. and probably had existed before it for some centuries. At times very large armies, three quarters of a million strong, were maintained.¹ But the State never lapsed into a military polity. The governors of the provinces were civil officers. All the known orders in inscriptions are addressed to civil functionaries. The Commander-in-Chief and all other military chiefs were appointed by the Council of State where the Commander-in Chief had no place. We do not find the army making and unmaking kings. All the traditions of depositions,—*e.g.*, that of *Nāga-Darśaka*, of *Pālaka* or of the early *Vena*, relate dethronements brought about by the Citizens of the Capital and other constituents of the civil population, not by the army. The king among his several titles—*Narapati* (Protector of the People), *Bhūpati* (Protector of the Country) *Bhaṭṭāraka* (Lord), *Great King* and others—has not got an epithet indicating an official military character, although his personal heroism is often extolled. He as the head of the executive was undoubtedly the head of the army, and in practice he very often led the army and fought, but that was a personal matter. There is no theory which gives him a military halo. He was not the generalissimo of the army of inherent right; that office was quite distinct from that of kingship from Vedic times (§ 211).

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¹ *E.g.*, in the time of Chandragupta Maurya.

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Likewise, war was to be avoided as far as it was possible, and especially so, for conquest. This was more or less a settled principle of Hindu politics.¹ Militarism as a feature is everywhere absent.

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¹ Manu, VII, 199; Mahā-Bhārata, 69, 23: "Brihaspati has laid down that a wise king should always avoid war for acquisition of territory."

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§ 358. On the other hand the most pronounced feature of the Hindu monarchy, as we have seen, was the paramount position of law in the polity. We have also noticed the prominent reference to law in the coronation oath of the Mahābhārata. The civil character of the Hindu monarchy is reflected in the stress laid on law.

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§ 359. Laws of war and conquest were incorporated into the Civil Law as one of its limbs. So much so that the question of conquest was often discussed from the point of view of municipal law, the standard being the standard of the morality of law. If a state was conquered its government was to be re-entrusted into the hands of the old ruling house. This was what the Mānava Dharma-Śāstra² laid down after an experience of a nearly all-India, one-king empire, extending 'from sea to sea,' from Madras to the Hindu Kush. It was based on the analogy of the legal theory of 'legitimacy.' It was not a mere theory which was once preached as a pious opinion and then forgotten. It was largely followed from the 4th to the 10th century A. C. In the Allahabad pillar inscription of the great conqueror Samudra Gupta of the Imperial Gupta dynasty we find the same principle acted upon. Kālidāsa records the same practice. The earliest Muhammadan writer bears witness to it. "The wars they wage with the neighbouring princes are "not usually undertaken with a view to possess themselves with "the adjoining dominions......When a prince makes himself "master of some kingdom, he confers the government upon "some person of the royal family," (851 A.C.—*Account of the* merchant *Sulaiman recorded by Abu Zaid*, trans. (1718) by the Abbé Renaudot). In the age of Hindu Rationalism which formed the palmiest days of Hindu history, the theory existed in the form noticed by the Greek writers with regard to Hindu attitude to foreign politics. Arrian drawing upon Megasthenes records in his *Indika* (IX):

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² Manu, VII, 202. Other law-Codes re-iterate the same principle.

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§ 360. Only such a theory would explain the great fact that although Chandragupta's was "the mightiest throne then existing in the world" (Rhys Davids) and so it remained under his two successors, and that although the Maurya emperors found their next-door neighbour, the Seleucid empire, weak and crumbling, yet no inclination was exhibited to go beyond the Hindu Kush, the natural frontier of the India of those days.

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§ 361. To this civil and legal character of Hindu Polity, the sociological historian, I venture to think, would mainly ascribe the extraordinary longevity of the Hindu State (§ 371), and the absence of a deadly conflict between the People and the Crown.

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"Sense of justice, they (Hindus) say, prevented any Indian
"King from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India."

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