Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c4.14

c4.14

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.