History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.127.2

v4.c62.127.2

130–131) quotes⁷⁶ the Viṣṇudharmottara requiring the king to honour and protect chaste women (pativratās) and Śaṅkha-Likhita to the effect that even kṣatriyas and vaiśyas who cannot maintain themselves by the methods prescribed by the śāstras for them should approach the king who should help them with the means of livelihood and they should work for the king in the manner laid down for them and that śūdras also should apply their skill and crafts for the benefit of the king when so maintained.⁷⁷ Medhātithi on Manu V. 94 states that when a king supports his subjects in a famine by distributing food from his treasury no question of his being in mourning would come in the way. These provisions for the old, the blind, the widows, orphans and helpless persons and for the relief of unemployed kṣatriyas, vaiśyas and śūdras strike one as rather modern in tone. In many modern countries the State has become the means of providing services for the greater part of its subjects, not only armed forces and the police, but social services such as education, public health, medical attendance, insurance against unemployment, old age, widowhood, and orphanage, relief of poverty &c.