Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c4: Chapter I

Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c4

Language: English

Chapter I

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The Characteristics of Indian Political Speculation

It was long an axiom of scholarship that ancient India had no contribution to political science. Professor Max Müller whose knowledge of Hindu literature was equalled only by his gift for generalisation declared that religion and philosophy formed the only sphere "where the Indian mind found itself at liberty to act, to create, and to worship."¹ A famous surveyor of ancient political thought starts with the conviction that "to the early Eastern mind the fact that a thing existed was sufficient of itself to show its right to be. Thus was effectually excluded all possibility of enquiries as to the relative perfection or justification for the existence of *de facto* social and political institutions."² But the literary and epigraphic material which the labours of scholars during the last forty years have brought together tells a different tale. It goes without saying that theology and metaphysics had an irresistible appeal to the Hindu mind, but they did not exhaust the whole field of research and speculation. Intellectual curiosity, once roused, could not but roam over the whole field of existence. Not to speak of the physical sciences, the Hindu mind grappled with handicrafts, cooking, dancing, music, erotics, and things which literature generally ignores. In all seriousness it tackled the problems which arise from the organisation of man in society.

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¹ Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 31.

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² Willoughby, Political Theories of the Ancient World, p. 14.

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Needless to say, the Hindu intellect dealt with everything in its own manner—a manner which reflects the dominant characteristics of Indian personality and which is very different from European ways.

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The Indian character, indeed, approaches the Slav at certain points but it is essentially different from the Teutonic.

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Indian Characteristics. Indian nature has always displayed an emotional flow and vibration which, on the whole, militates against rigidity of discipline and organisation. If in one or two spheres organisation was attempted on a scale unknown in the West, there were whole departments of life which were left unorganised. Here culture was embodied in institutions to a far lesser degree than in Europe. Social thought is more diffuse and less exact and systematic than in the West. The power of imagination which is another leading characteristic of the Indian psychology often promotes the same tendency. Add to it a metaphysical turn of mind and it is easy to understand why the Hindu writers thought of man in terms of the Universe, the present in terms of eternity. The philosophic Hindu intellect is always searching for unity and appears at its best in synthesis. It is seldom at home in analysis and induction. It achieves its triumphs in declaration rather than in ratiocination, in broad generalisation rather than in dissection. On the other hand, Indian thinking is remarkably clear and tends to run an idea to its extreme logical consequences. It gains in fulness but it underestimates the complexities of life. Such are the essential features of Indian psychology. It is not necessary here to inquire how far they are the result of innate racial characteristics or climatic influences and how far they have been determined by the exigencies of economic life and accidents of history. But it is important to bear them in mind in any investigation of Hindu thought. They explain why Indian political

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theory follows a path so divergent from its Western counterpart.

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The habit of synthesis, of looking at life as a whole, correlated the whole of social thought. After ages of intellectual activity politics was recognised as a science by itself and, in the hands of some authors, was exalted to the rank of the supreme science but it could never make itself completely independent of religion and ethics. In India religion claimed the whole allegiance of man and sought to be with him from birth to death and for ever. The law which comes down from the inspired sages in the sacred books covers the whole of private and associated life. Priest-craft invented a symbolism and ritual bewildering in extent and baffling in minuteness. Political institutions and ideas acquired a religious tinge which never wholly left them. The intimate contact of religion with the rest of life explains why Hindu social and political theory is often presented in the same books with law and domestic ritual. On the other hand, the authors of avowedly political works could not resist the temptation to survey many fields of human thought and endeavour. In either class of writers, the supernatural element is frequently present. The divine hand is visible in the formation of society and government; the divine purpose has to be enforced; divine punishment reinforces earthly chastisement and sometimes supplants it altogether. Under this inspiration social theory becomes part of the general theory of the universe and is fitted into the scheme which comprises theology, metaphysics, tradition, logic, law, ethics and economics. But it loses in spontaneity and freedom; its development is arrested and it never goes to the depths which Plato and Aristotle reached.

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Even more potent than the influence of religion is that of ethics on the nature and character of political theory.

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| The leading features of Indian political thought. |

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Indian social thought has a pre-eminently ethical motive.

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The practical character of Indian political thought. Not only does it, as a rule, assume certain fundamental principles of morality but it always seeks to direct life. It does explain what is, but its primary concern is to point out what ought to be. The attitude was responsible for the wide range which political theory covered. In India the state was never confined to "the hindrance of hindrances"; its function was not merely negative or preventive. It must consciously and actively stimulate virtue and guide the moral life. It must regulate the social order and keep all to their duties. No governmental action can extend to the inner thoughts and motives of man but the Hindu theory wants the state to ally itself with the forces and influences which touch the springs of action. Under this conception the state bulks large in the communal life and the theory of the state proceeds to resolve itself into a theory of law and morals. In short, political science becomes the ethics of a whole society, a science of the whole duty of man in all his relations and environment. On the other hand, the practical bent of political thought sometimes deprives it of its philosophic character altogether. Knowledge must issue in action. Theory is married to art. The theorist assumes the tone and accent of a lawgiver. He frequently addresses himself to those engaged in political work. When he seeks to be exhaustive, he enunciates a series of detailed departmental codes. He becomes dictatorial and, in his hands, political science often ceases to be a science and becomes an art—the art of government. Hindu literature does present a theory of society and a theory of state but it forms only the groundwork of a theory of government. When the mass of writings on public organisation is considered as a whole, the central theme is discovered to be government.

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This dominant tendency partly counteracts the idealistic and imaginative bent of the Hindu mind. The theory of public affairs rarely loses touch with the social conditions and political temper of the times. It has its Utopias but they are only the political counterpart of the Golden Age in which the Hindu mind sought to compensate itself for the surrounding degradation. As a rule, it reflects the *status quo*. It assumes the existing social order, the traditional scheme of duties and the prevalent form of political organisation. In a country parcelled out among numerous petty states always in actual or potential hostility with their neighbours, diplomacy had departed far from ethical moorings. There are a few writers who advocate a return to the straight path of morality but all who sought to be counsellors of governments compromise with facts. They become realists after the fashion of Machiavelli and Treitschke. In the same philosophers, one may notice a sudden fall from ethereal heights to the rankest realism. At first sight the unity of aim seems to be destroyed but it is all explained by the practical aim which the writers generally keep in view.

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This purpose of the theory of government, coupled with the Hindu habit of synthesis and the all-embracing idea of the state, joined politics to other branches of human activity. The law which the government was to enforce is stated by political writers with varying degrees of fulness. The administration must have an idea and concrete projects of economic welfare. Agriculture, irrigation, famines, mining, communications, all come in for their share of treatment in works on "policy." In fact the term Arthaśāstra which was applied to politics is quite as applicable to economics. Diplomacy was an integral part of political theory. Fortification was mentioned in the same breath with sovereign and minister as one of the component elements of the State. The army was another such factor and political works become, in certain portions, treatises on military equipment, tactics and strategy. Espionage is treated with an astonishing fulness of detail. It is needless to mention that topics like public finance partake of the very essence of governmental theory. Not less intimate was the connection of political theory with the dominant feature of Indian social organisation.

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It was during the later Vedic period that there grew up the institution of caste which occupies a prominent place in all subsequent social speculation, and which has a direct bearing on governmental theory. Perhaps caste was partly borrowed from the Dravidians among whom, in the south, it still obtains a much more rigid form than in the north.¹ The ancient designation of caste, Varna or colour suggests that the difference of complexion between the Aryan settlers and the darker aborigines was a cause of the first magnitude in the division of society into two primary ranks. If a distant analogy be permitted, the legislation on the relations between the Whites and the Negroes in the southern states of the American Union supports the hypothesis. The natural operation of economic forces and of warfare splits a community into different groups. The Hindu tendency to push an idea to its logical extreme produced caste where Europe stopped at class. Whatever its original causes, caste which fixes the station of man according to Birth and which restricts intermarriage among groups, is taken for granted throughout the greater period of Hindu history and obtrudes at innumerable points into governmental organisation and theory. At the base of the institution lies the idea of function which formed the governing principle of Hindu associated life. Function, indeed, must dominate all organisation. Every social

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¹ Gilbert Slater, The Dravidian Element in Hindu Culture.

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purpose is the basis of a function; every association or institution has an object. But Hindu theory erected function into an ethical principle. The individual is not to seek his own interest or expression, not to determine his own ambitions or ends. Caste does not admit that every individual is in his nature universal and that he has the right to select his own function. He must primarily fulfil the function assigned to him from the moment of his birth in the social whole of which he forms a part. In the exaltation of society, the human values are practically lost and much that is personal gives way to the collective elements. The theory, in fact, strikes at the root of individuality and amounts almost to a denial of personality.

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Philosophically, the theory of function, as embodied in caste, rests on a profound belief in heredity. A warrior's boy is best fitted to be a warrior and should marry into a martial family so as to transmit the original stamina to posterity. Priests, traders, artisans, all should observe endogamy and follow their hereditary occupations. Any injustices which the practical working of the system may seem to involve are explained away by the inexorable law of Karma. Matempsychosis which was not a mere theological dogma but which has been a living belief of Hindus for ages lays down that every soul migrates from body to body and is reborn in the environment to which its deeds in past lives entitle it. He who finds himself in the lowest rank of Śûdras has no right to complain. He is merely reaping as he sowed. Now he must in all conscience and diligence perform the task assigned to him in society. That is his duty. If he neglects it, he will fall into yet deeper misery in a future life. If he fulfils his vocation, he may rise higher, and may even become a god, in days to come. So, buttressed by metaphysics on the one hand and by the dogma of heredity on the other, the theory of function, as crystallised in caste, acquired a conspicuous position in Hindu speculation and determined the trend of social literature. Thus the duty of the individual is a social duty; his good is the good of society; his virtue is the virtue of society. The individual and society become one in their moral purpose. This conception of life implies a denial of Natural Rights in the form which the idea assumed in modern Europe. The individual is merged in society against which he can have no rights. All his rights consist in the performance of his function. In the discharge of his duties, he is entitled to protection at the hands of the Government and society in general. But his rights are pre-eminently social rights. The antithesis, man versus state or society, could not have occurred to the Hindu mind.

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Of the social order and of Government as the agency of its enforcement the Hindu thinkers have a clear view, but the very insistence on these two concepts prevented them from formulating the idea of the state as distinct from either. Society was organised pre-eminently as society; Government was a part of that organisation, like the spiritual hierarchy, like the industrial and commercial mechanism. It is all one whole. The same organisation is at once religious, political, economic and military. It is generally viewed in a comprehensive manner. The habit of looking at it primarily from the political angle of vision is not cultivated. As a result, the concept of the state does not emerge very clearly and ‘government’ is used in the sense which the ‘state’ conveys in modern times. Since the government was generally monarchical, the term ‘king’ becomes really synonymous with government and state.

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The comprehensive functional view of society leads to another important conclusion. The caste which combined

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Government and Society.

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learning and priestly functions received many privileges, but it was never contemplated to establish an ecclesiastical organisation like the Roman Catholic Church or the English Church. Society itself included, as part and parcel of its being, what were called Church and State in Europe. The conflict between the secular and religious powers which raged in medieval Europe and gave rise to a good deal of political theory, had no counterpart in ancient India. The problem of the relations of Church and State, which is still a topic of European political thought, does not arise in Sanskrit literature. It is the relations of the government with the social order and life as a whole which call for comment and guidance. From the very nature of the social theory, government could not be regarded as Sovereign in the Austinian sense of the term. It did not impart validity to the Order; rather, it shared in its validity. It could not alter it at will; other parts of it were as valid as itself. It sustained the social order but that was merely its function. It embodied the coercive power of the community and was bound to use it in the social interest just as the priest or trader was bound to use his spiritual or economic power in the social interest. Sovereignty was really diffused throughout the community and was embodied in the Law which had its ultimate source in the Divine Will. On the part of the individual there can be no unified allegiance, no single loyalty, except to society as a whole. No component part, not even government, can claim to be absolutely sovereign. Here the monistic theory of sovereignty as applied to the state or government, fails completely; only a pluralistic theory can grasp the Indian phenomena. The state was only one of the groups to which the individual belonged, or rather, the state was merged in the social order as a whole. It is only the principles which lay at the root of the social and moral order that are omnipotent. They are summed up as Dharma, Law, Virtue, or Duty. The law, conceived in this wide sense, is above all individuals or groups. It limits the power of the government; it regulates its exercise. It is above man; it is divine. With the government rests the ultimate power of adjusting social relations but the adjustment must proceed according to Dharma. Such are the principles in the light of which the Indian theory of government has to be examined. Every survey of political ideas ought to be conducted in the light of contemporary institutions. But the student of Hindu theory can observe the rule only in a very imperfect manner. It is rarely possible to be sure of the exact dates of the writers or to visualise the practical working of institutions at a given epoch. All that is possible is to keep in view the general features of the administration.

Linked texts (1)

Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit