Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t2.174

c4.t2.174

⁵ On this particular point it is difficult for us to see eye to eye with Prof. W. Norman Brown, the learned folk-lorist who remarks, "There is nothing more common in Hindu folk tales than the election of a king, when the throne is vacant, by either some or all of the 'pañcacāreyāni' (five divinely guided instruments, state elephant, etc; See Edgerton, J.A.O.S., 33 155 ff.) And yet this was certainly never a Hindu custom in historical times, nor, I think we may safely say, in times prehistorical.... These and many other incidents of constant occurrence in fiction are of purely imaginary existence as far as concerns real life." J.A.O.S., 39, p. 3, note 6" This seems to be a hasty conclusion. The very fact of its constant occurrence in literature is for us a tangible support for maintaining that there was some such custom of selecting a king in Ancient India.