History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.230.1

v4.c62.230.1

In modern times the activities of a sovereign person are three-fold, viz. executive, judicial and legislative. The judicial activities of the ancient Indian king will be dealt with in another section on law and the administration of justice. One great difference between ancient and modern societies is that the legislative action of the king was extremely limited in ancient times, while in modern times people are more and more looking to legislation for regulating all manner of things. Manu (VII. 13) lays down that since the king has in him the glory of all deities, whatever rule as regards desirable matters the king establishes and whatever action he declares as undesirable among those actions that are harmful, should not be transgressed by any one. In his gloss on this verse Medhātithi carefully points out what orders the king can issue and on what subjects he cannot issue orders. He gives the following instances of orders of both kinds: 'To-day all should observe a festival in the capital; all should attend a marriage ceremony at the house of the minister; animals should not be killed to-day by the butchers and birds should not be caught; debtors should not be harassed by creditors on these days (to be specified); no one should associate with such and such a man (an undesirable person); no one should allow a certain (undesirable) person to enter the house'.