Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c15.35

c15.35

enables a system to operate in the body-politic. As such it issues commands (without violating the sacred fundamental law) to do or not to do certain acts.¹ In connection with the whole complex of institutions, Hindu theory views the governmental power as sustaining social life, and giving it security and completeness. So, the king who stands for the government and for the state, is extolled as divine and even more than divine. It is interesting to compare the Hindu idea with one set of medieval, and another set of modern, European conceptions. The Hindu eulogies of the kingship remind one, for instance, of Ambrosiaster who spoke of the ruler as "the Vicar of God," and of St. Optatus of Milevis who, in his treatise on the Donatist Schism in North Africa, explicitly declared that the ruler was the representative of God. The spirit of Hindu political sayings recalls certain passages in Hegel's Philosophy of History. "The State," says the German idealist, "is the divine idea as it exists on earth." "The state is the divine will as the present spirit unfolding itself to the actual shape and organisation of a world." "The state is a form of the absolute spirit, which is the essence of all things." "All the worth which the living being possesses—all spiritual reality—he possesses only through the state." The state "is the absolute power on earth." There is one fundamental difference between Hegelianism and Hindu political thought. The latter will not subordinate the fundamental Law to the state or the government. But when after postulating this condition, the Hindus embark on the glorification of the sovereign power, they leave even Hegel far behind. The government claims all loyalty. It is the incarnation of the absolute, a super-personality which absorbs the real, living personality of men and women.