Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c8.s1.8

c8.s1.8

devotion, and oblations to gods were to be offered with lavish generosity. In the course of a great rite called Mahākachchhavardhan, cows were milked on cremation or burial grounds, and the trunk of a corpse was burnt. But more rational means were not forgotten. The Government should organise bands of physicians to carry medicine to the people.¹ A similar union of reason and faith was witnessed when nature inundated the country with superabundant water. Rivers were to be worshipped at new and fullmoon. When they persisted in overflowing their banks, priests, mystics and magicians sought to cut off the supply of rain. Meanwhile, villagers on river banks should remove themselves further up, and provide themselves with wooden planks, bamboos and boats. If overtaken by the floods, they should be rescued by means of bottle-gourds, canoes, boats or trunks of trees. Those who possessed these instruments, and yet were too heartless or timid to rescue their fellow-men, were to be fined twelve paṇas.²