The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.83

c14.83

The cumulative evidence of Manu, Kauṭalya, Viṣṇu and Yājñavalkya, all of whom belong to the great interregnum between the Mauryas and the Guptas tends to show that the country was divided into a large number of states, that they were constantly vacillating between the status of suzerain and that of vassal, that many a state had a number of dependencies and that the internal autonomy of a dependency was generally, though not uniformly, respected, that the status of a protectorate was most difficult to define ranging as it did from almost complete independence to practical annexation, that the acknowledgment of suzerainty might have been merely nominal in some cases, while other states might have been reduced to mere estates. Kauṭalya’s reference to some people as Śastropa-jīvinaḥ is obscure but it probably means those who lived by their arms and refers to some warlike clans.¹ His characterisation of Dvairājya as productive of rivalry and mutual conflict leading to destruction indicates some peoples who had not evolved a regular form of monarchical government.² In the vocabulary of politics, feudalism is the only word that describes this state of things. The difference between the conditions of medieval Europe and the India of the early Christian era is apparent but the actual position of the state and its head show points of resemblance in either country. It is the institutions of such a small state, ridden by feudalism, that Kauṭalya seeks to portray in what appeared to him an ideal form.