The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.67

Language: English

c21.67.1

literature¹ that the development of the Âryan kingship owed something to the example of the aborigines. But after this possible fusion of Âryan and aboriginal institutions had been completed, there was, in historical times, little outside influence forthcoming to give a different turn to Hindu political development. There was, for instance, no such metamorphosis of the organs of governance in ancient India as came over Anglo-Saxon institutions with the Norman Conquest. Scholars now agree that general Greek influence on India was neither so deep nor so far-reaching as was once, almost naturally, supposed. Even in the case of the Hindu theatre the fact of the Greek influence, so strongly argued for by Weber,² has been denied by later writers.³ The latest surveyor of the Sanskrit Drama thus sums up the situation: “We cannot assuredly deny the possibility of Greek influence, in the sense that Weber admitted the probability; the drama or the mime, may, as played at Greek courts, have aided in the development of a true drama, but the evidence leaves only a negative answer to the search for positive signs of influence.”⁴ Greek influence on the art of Gandhâra is generally admitted but its extent is still a matter of controversy. Nor is the ground any surer in regard to philosophy. The new spirit which appeared in Buddhism about the first century B.C. has been traced by Sylvain Lévi to Hellenic influences, but here, as elsewhere, the evidence is very scanty.

c21.67.2

The fact remains that the growth of ideas and cultural styles in India can be adequately explained on the basis of Indian causes. On Hindu political theory Greek influence is conspicuous by its absence. Nowhere in the entire range of that speculation is there any such break or new turn as the impact of the virile, profound political philosophy of Greece would tend to produce. The little development which Hindu political thought displays is fully explicable on variations in the degree of secularity in different groups of compositions, on the rise of new creeds which necessitated a re-statement of the political theory attached to old religious schools and on the mutual approach of the various lines of thought thus started. In Manu and a few other writers the term Yavana is used loosely to indicate one of the hordes which lay beyond the Hindu pale. There are indeed a few isolated passages which, *prima facie*, suggest Greek influence. For instance, Aśvaghoṣa in his Saundara Nandam Kâvyam remarks that some princes founded a city but discovered that if its affairs were to prosper they must have a king. So they raised to rulership one of themselves who was senior to the rest in age, discipline and accomplishments.¹ Here a city is a state, its government is elective and secular in origin. But even here is nothing essentially new to Hindu thought, nothing that could not have arisen from the impact of Buddhist philosophy on the line of thought represented by the Mahâbhârata.

c21.67.3

The deeper problems with which the Greek mind grappled with lasting, amazing results—the sociality of man, the ethos of society or state, the classification of states, etc.—do not appear in Hindu political speculation. If the Greek intellectual genius, always so potent in moulding the thought of peoples, found no opportunity for making itself felt in India, it was hardly likely that the Greeks should influence Hindu government. In the domain of administrative practice the only tangible evidence of Greek influence is the Greek titles or legends on some coins and a few inscriptions. The Indo-Greek coins, however, show a rapid assimilation to the Hindu type. There is no evidence to support the view that the formation of big empires in India was inspired by the example of Alexander's vast dominion. As the foregoing chapters will have proved, the nature and character of Hindu empires were essentially different from those of the Macedonian regime. The latter approached the Roman model. The Hindu empire, on the other hand, was the exact antithesis of Rome which stood for rigidity and uniformity. The process of empire-building had commenced in India, after the characteristic genius of her people, long before Alexander appeared on the scene. The Mauryan empire only represented a further stage in the development. The fact is that Alexander's stay in India was far too short to cast any influence on Indian institutions.

c21.67.4

The effort of Seleucus to revive the glories of the great Macedonian empire ended in failure. The Greeks who appeared on the Indian scene after Seleucus were themselves fast losing touch with the mainsprings of Greek life. At last the rise of Parthia, one of the central events in the history of the Middle East, cut them off almost completely from the centres of Hellenism. Then the Hindu capacity for assimilating foreign elements told with decisive effect. The Indo-Greeks ceased to be Greek and became Indian. Whatever their original political ideals, they were cast aside in favour of Hindu tradition. When all the evidence on administrative practices from coins, inscriptions, literature and foreign accounts is put together, it shows nothing which was Greek in origin or which assumed its historical form under Greek influence. In a like manner the Scythians and others who entered India after the Greeks and who were rapidly Hinduised exercised little influence on the development of institutions in ancient India.