Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c8.s5.39

c8.s5.39

With the aid of the means of communication, order was to be enforced throughout the kingdom. The teacher of Kautalya had laid down that on Order depended the progress of the world. Kautalya himself perceived the dangers of undue severity but, nevertheless, he proclaimed the sovereign importance of discipline. If the operation of the law were suspended, he says, society would relapse into anarchy; the strong would devour the weak as the fishes devoured each other in water; the entire social structure would collapse. The maintenance of order, then, even with harshness where necessary, was the first aim of all government. A minute code regulated the preservation of peace. Seditious conspiracy and revolt were two of the most serious offences recognised by the state, and punished with death or something worse.¹ All social and economic institutions, the family, the guild, the village, caste organisations, were called upon to aid the state in its supreme task.