Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times c51.5

c51.5

The High Monarchy is not defined. But the word *mahā-* (*mahat*) connotes relativity, *e.g.*, superiority between States of the same kind. *Māhā-rājya* probably meant a large monarchy, larger than its neighbours, with certain constitutional features at present not known. *Ādhipatya* in its technical sense evidently signifies an over-lordship embracing protected states; the *Brāhmaṇa* after the mention of the Ādhipatya has "May I be (sovereign) enveloping neighbours "² *Ādhipatya* thus seems to mean an imperial system in which suzerainty or 'over-protection' (Ādhipatya) on states outside its frontiers was exercised by the dominant state. Khāravela who had taken the consecration of *Mahārājya*, was described obviously in consequence of his conquests and *rājasūya*, as *Adhipati* and *Chakravartin*.¹ The wish to be a Sārvabhauma is expressed to become "(the sole) *monarch of the land up to its* (natural) *frontiers, up to the sea, over all human beings*."² This is a variety of large monarchy which is based on territory as opposed to nationality (*e.g.*, *Jānarājya* of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa). It however claims the whole area (sarva-bhūmi) within natural boundaries, the country with "natural frontiers." The "natural frontiers" notion is expressed by Kauṭilya in his *chāturanta* sovereignty ('an empire up to the four limits')³ and he defines it to be the *imperial field* as lying between Cape Comorin and the Himalayas, *i.e.*, the whole of India.⁴ The ideal of one-king empire extending up to the seas probably arose in Magadha from where the field for conquest lay open up to the Bay of Bengal. Its non-Aryan population, unlike the Aryan Janas or nations of the Doab, was no moral barrier to the Hindu imperialist.