History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.72

v4.c62.72

The germ of the theory of Divine Right of kings probably goes back even to the Ṛgveda. Ṛg. IV. 42 is a hymn of king Trasadasyu, son of Purukutsa. Some of the ideas therein are startling enough. He says ‘the gods rely on the might of Varuṇa, while I am the lord of the people (verse 1, *kratum sacante Varuṇasya devā rājāmi kṛṣṭeḥ* &c); I am Indra and Varuṇa, I am the wide and the deep Heaven and Earth, I am the son of Aditi (verses 3 and 4)’. Here there is an explicit claim by a king to be identical with the mightiest and greatest gods of the Vedic pantheon. In the Atharvaveda VI. 87. 1-2 it is said about the king ‘May all the people long for you, may not the kingdom be lost from your hands, may you stand firm in the world like Indra and may you uphold the kingdom’. In the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa V. 1. 5. 14 (when describing the shooting of arrows in the Vājapeya) it is said ‘the *rājanya* is most manifestly of Prajāpati, while being one he rules over many’. Here the position of the rājanya appears to be regarded as due to his being the representative of Prajāpati. In the Śat. Br. V. 4. 3. 4 the sacrificer in the Rājasūya is identified with Indra and it is said that that position is due to two causes viz. (1) his being a member of the kṣatriya order and (2) his participating in a solemn sacrifice. But passages like the last and Śat. Br. V. 1. 3. 4, V. 1. 4. 2, V. 2. 2. 14 *should not* be relied upon in support of the theory of the divine right of kings (as done by U. Ghoshal in ‘Hindu Political Theories’, pp. 28-29), since every participator (whether a brāhmaṇa or a kṣatriya) in such solemn sacrifices as the Agniṣṭoma and Vājapeya was supposed to possess a celestial body after *dīkṣā* and Pravargya and was often spoken of as identified with Indra and other gods. Viśvarūpa on Yāj. I. 350 quotes a long vedic passage (*āgama*) in which it is stated “the gods said to Prajāpati ‘we shall arrange for a king in human form by taking from the moon, the sun, Indra, Viṣṇu, Vaiśravaṇa (Kubera) and Yama respectively majesty, brilliance, valour, victoriousness, liberality and control" and that the king thus formed asked the gods to give to him Dharma as his friend and that then he would protect the people and then the gods made Dharma (i. e. daṇḍa) his friend.