Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t3.59

c4.t3.59

There is another instance which is highly valued by scholars as showing the limited prerogatives of the king. We refer to the Telapatta Jātaka where a Yakkhinī—an ogress—wife requests the king to hand over to her absolute mastery over his subjects. The king replies: "Sweetheart, I have no power over those that dwell throughout my kingdom; I am not their lord and master. I have only jurisdiction over those who revolt or do iniquity. So I cannot give you power and authority over the whole kingdom."⁷ How far is this statement true? Was the king's authority so much limited in reality? We do not think it was. Instances that we have noticed before speak quite to the contrary. Whether or not he was the lord and master of his subjects, we may not discuss, for that is all theory. But when the king denies his right of transferring the power and authority over his people to another, he may be reminded of many other princes who freely give away that power without any sense of hesitation or any fear of inflicting a blow on the rights of the people'.¹ The king in the *Brahmadatta Jātaka*,² for instance, is prepared to make over his kingdom to an ascetic. In another *Jātaka*³ the king gives away the half of his kingdom to a horse-dealer. Elsewhere⁴ we find the king giving away his kingship to the *purohita* with whom the queenmother was in love. Another king lays his kingdom at the feet of a Bodhisatta⁵ who however refuses it. In another story the king actually divides the kingdom with a jolly poor fellow and the two rule in harmony and friendship.⁶ These instances are sufficient to show that there was nothing, moral or otherwise, that could come in the way of the king transferring his power to anybody he liked. In fact the rule of a country by two kings—*Dvairājya*—did exist as Kauṭilya shows.⁷ So that the above statement cannot be taken as pointing to the real state of affairs, and we demur in attaching so great an importance to this passage as scholars⁸ have done. As a matter of fact, the evidence is inconclusive. The situation is rather anomalous. From what we saw above, it would be, more or less, nearer the truth if we conclude that the king was, as a general rule, autocratic, having no substantial constitutional checks whatsoever,⁹ and that this autocracy varied according to individual kings. This is the impression that lasts on our mind after everything is considered.¹⁰