Local Government in Ancient India c10.15

c10.15

But if the king had to respect the laws of the local bodies he had also to see that the members thereof observed their own laws, violations of which he was bound to punish. Thus Yājñavalkya says (I. 361): 'The king must discipline and establish again on the path (of duty) all such as have erred from their own laws, whether families, castes, guilds, associations, or people of certain districts.'¹ Viṣṇu (III. 2)² also holds that the duty of the king is to keep the four castes and the four orders in the practice of their respective duties. Nārada also has the same opinion (X. 2): 'Among heretics, Naigamas, guilds, corporations, troops or companies of soldiers, assemblages of kinsmen and other (associations) the king must maintain the usages settled among them, both in the fortified towns and in the open country'.³