The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.50

c21.50

The survival of Hindu administrative practices in Medieval India had its counterpart in theory. Now, however, Hindu theory kept at a distance from facts but it could never lose sight of them completely. Sanskrit literature, which did not die out with the loss of Hindu independence, now concerned itself less and less with politics until it ceased to care for it at all. Though concerned primarily with literary form, commenting and explaining of old matter, custom and usage, it produced a few works which belong to the old tradition of Hindu social and political thought. The most important of them was Śukranitisāra the bulk of which was composed probably about the thirteenth century, and which, in its present shape, includes some matter as late as the 16th or even the 17th century A.D.¹ Conscious, perhaps, that he had appeared on the scene rather late, the author of Śukraniti is at pains to connect his handiwork with hoary antiquity.² He touches on all topics of government, embellishing and improving on all the details.