History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.537
History of Dharmaśāstra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.537
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v4.c62.537.1
At the end of this section on Rājadharma, a question may be asked: what were the ends or purposes that the State in ancient India placed before itself or the dharmaśāstra and arthaśāstra writers said the State should place before itself? The end of the State has been differently stated by different philosophers and theorists of the West from ancient times to the present day. To take only a few examples. To Plato and Aristotle³¹⁶ the end of the State was good life for the citizens. But it is not very easy to say what is meant by the good life. Bluntschli in 'Theory of the State' (Oxford, 1885) Book V Chap. IV p. 300 formulates the proper and direct end of the State to be 'the development of the national capacities, the perfection of the national life and finally its completion', provided, of course, that the process of moral and political development shall not be opposed to the destiny of humanity. This definition is not easy to grasp. There is no agreement as to what is the destiny of humanity and the concepts of nation and national life are hardly older than a few centuries even in Europe. For 'nation' one may substitute the word 'country' or 'kingdom'. Then it may be of some application to India. It is impossible to define the end of the State in a single word or in a few words. This question about the end of the State has been partly answered already when speaking of the ideals of kingship.
v4.c62.537.2
At the risk of some repetition a reply to the above question may be given in the following words. The authors on Dharmaśāstra had a very low estimate of human nature, they believed that ordinarily men were depraved, that it was difficult to find a man pure by nature and that men were kept in the straight path by the fear of punishment ( Manu VII. 22 = Śānti316a 15. 34 ). Yāj. I. 361 requires the king to punish and bring to the proper path castes and guilds when they swerve from their dharma. Kām. (II. 40 and 42-43) says the same thing and adds that in the absence of daṇḍa the world will revert to the state of mātsya-nyāya ( the strong devouring the weak). Śukra I. 23 says the same thing. The ancient writers did not rely on the natural moral impulses of man and on his will to do the right thing. The same ideas are expressed by some Western writers on law and politics. 'A herd of wolves is quieter and more at one than so many men, unless they all had one reason in them or have one power over them' says Jeremy Taylor. Salmond ( Jurisprudence p. 65 ) states 'man is by nature a fighting animal and force is the *ultima ratio* not of kings alone but of all mankind'. We must distinguish between immediate or proximate ends and the ultimate end. The ultimate end or goal of most of our philosophy was mokṣa (release or liberation from the ever-recurring cycle of births and deaths and from the miseries and suffering of life ). The same was the ultimate goal of rājadharma.
v4.c62.537.3
But the proximate goal of the State in India was to create such conditions and environments as would enable all men to live in peace and happiness, to pursue their avocations, to follow their own customs and usages and their 'svadharma', to enjoy without interference the fruits of their labour and the property acquired by them. The king was the divinely provided instrument to create the conditions of peace, order and happiness. If the king impartially exercises the power of *daṇḍa* over all, whether his own son or enemy, in proportion to their guilt, he secures this world and the next for himself and the people; the king's scrupulous performance of his own duties leads him and his people to heaven. The task of the State (or the king who represented the State) was to repress by the threat and use of force any violation of the rights of personal freedom and property, to enforce the practice of people's own traditional customs and usages and to take serious care of virtues and dharma. These were the sentiments of Kauṭilya himself (III. 1.).³¹⁶ At the very threshold of his work he remarks 'therefore the king should not allow people to swerve from or fail in their duties (dharma); for whoever holds fast by his dharma, observes the rules laid down for *āryas* and those of castes and āśramas (the stages of life) will be happy in this world and the next.
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The members of society consisting of four castes and having four āśramas when guarded by the king with daṇḍa will abide by their respective paths, being devoted adherents of their respective duties and avocations'.