Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c4.9

c4.9

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.