History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.537.2

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.