The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.128

c21.128

On the other hand, the Hindu state was generally alive to some vital interests of the people. It encouraged agriculture and looked after irrigation. It stepped in to save the consumer from exorbitant profiteering and allowed all classes of craftsmen to band together. It cared for the means of communication and had no small share in promoting the homogeneity of culture throughout the country. The rulers often provided for the comforts of travellers and sick people and showed unstinted generosity to the poor people. The Hindu courts favoured poets and scholars and endowed academies and veritable universities which won the enthusiastic admiration of great Chinese scholars. The Hindu state succeeded in maintaining conditions favourable to the rise of systems of philosophy which still command respect, religions which, in certain aspects, touch the sublimest heights, and a literature which ranks among the great literatures of the world. Sometimes the state directly took the lead in moral and religious reform. Under Aśoka and Kaniṣka it helped transform the higher life of India and transmitted to the Far East a gospel which still warms and illumines its spiritual life.