The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c21.75

c21.75

centuries India maintained constant intercourse with Persia. The early literature, religion and culture of the Irânians were akin to those of the Hindus. It is more than probable that the two branches of the Âryan race had a good deal of social and political organisation in common. After their separation their environment, climatic or economic, was, of course, different but not so radically different as to give rise to fundamentally and entirely different systems of polity. Accordingly, the Persian system of administration, as reconstructed in the light of the latest researches, presents many points of affinity with the institutions examined in the foregoing chapters. It is now recognised that "the discussion as to the respective merits of democracy, oligarchy and monarchy attributed by Herodotus to Darius and his six companions after the death of Gaumata, interesting as it may be as an illustration of Greek political philosophy, is valueless for the Persian theory or practice of government."¹ Like the Hindu, the Persian monarchy was hereditary; pretenders to the Persian throne sought to pass for scions of the royal house. But the principle of primogeniture was not recognised so well in Persia as in India.² In Persia, the king's word was law, a principle which Hindu theory, wedded to Theology, would not recognise. In practice, however, the Persian and Hindu systems came near each other. The king's word in Persia was "generally determined in consultation with the Persian nobles and officials (which custom required of the king), and by regard for the usages of the country concerned. The 'royal judges,' as Herodotus calls them, or 'law-bearers' as they were probably called in Persian (dâtabara), advised the king what was law or custom."'¹ The difference with the Hindu practices lay in the large part played by the priest in the latter. In Persia "the king acted in consultation with his ministers, the heads of great departments of state, which must have existed in the capital, though of them little is directly known. . . . Certain lines of policy characteristic of the Persian government seem clear. While supreme authority resided in the king, great regard was paid, so far as the supremacy of the central authority allowed, to the traditional life and custom of the many diverse peoples gathered into the vast empire. The Persian was a tolerant government.