The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c15.160

c15.160

splendour and right royal generosity. Yet annexation in the strict sense of the term is conspicuous by its absence. In the opening lines of the Raghuvamśa, the poet expressly refers to the Raghus as anxious to conquer *for the sake of glory*.¹ In the fourth canto he once remarks that Raghu deprived Mahendranātha of his glory (Śrī) but not of his territory (medinī).² All this is in harmony with epigraphic data, but literature with rare exceptions seems to have been too conservative to recognise the grand high-sounding imperial titles which had come into vogue. It is content to apply the ordinary Sanskrit words Rāja, Nripa, Narendra, Bhūpati, etc., to all rulers. As a result, the distinction between suzerains and feudatories is never brought out so clearly as in the inscriptions. None the less, the number of small rulers and feudatories within the universal empire postulated by Kālidāsa is legion. They come in swarms to attend the sacrifices or court ceremonies. There are numbers of them at a svayaṁvara to win the hand of Indumatī. They are ready to war when they are passed over, one by one, in favour of Aja by the princess.³ In the fifteenth canto Rāma divides his kingdom among his sons and nephews. There is nothing in the inscriptions to support such a practice of the distribution of the realm but if it ever took place in any part of the country, it would further promote the feudal tendency.