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The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c5: Chapter I. Introduction

The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c5

Language
English

Chapter I. Introduction

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The political institutions of the Hindus¹ are, in their origin, as old as those of the Greeks but it is impossible to trace their development or visualise their working with the same clarity and fulness. In spite of the rapid strides of Oriental research during the last hundred years, there is no political history of India, in the strict sense of the term, prior to the sixth century B.C., while the gaps in the subsequent annals are numerous and sometimes cover centuries. The dates of many kings are doubtful, while nothing can exceed the difficulty of fixing the chronological limits of most of the Hindu poets, philosophers, grammarians and legal and political writers. Nor is the raw material available for the study of political institutions so abundant in itself as the size of the country and the duration of its history would lead one to expect. Historical compositions are few. Works on law or polity are certainly numerous but, for the most part, they are theoretical and do not readily yield any information on the practical working of institutions. General literature, religious or secular, gives something only after the most searching examination. The foreign accounts of India by classical, Chinese and Arab writers are more valuable but they are few and far between and some of them have not come down to us at first hand. The inscriptions and coins which have been discovered and deciphered by a host of scholars in ever-increasing numbers of late constitute the real basis of the study of the structure and working of Hindu political institutions but the interpretation of administrative and fiscal terms therein bristles with difficulties.

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¹ Throughout this book the word Hindu is used in a comprehensive sense so as to include followers of the Brahmanic, Buddhist, Jaina and other indigenous Indian persuasions.

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The Method of Study. A discussion, based on scanty and dispersed materials, partly of uncertain dates, is bound to be perfunctory at best. Besides, there is the risk of reading modern or preconceived notions into the terms and documents of ancient times of which the atmosphere is so difficult to re-capture. One may be tempted to dismiss the polity of ancient India as mere "Oriental Despotism" which requires no further analysis and evaluation. Or one may import into antiquity the spirit and ideals of modern times. Again, such is the nature of our documents that isolated statements readily adapt themselves to attractive hypotheses and generalisations. The warning uttered by Professor Keith in regard to the Rigveda applies to much else in the range of Hindu literature, epigraphy and numismatics. "It is easy," he writes, "to frame and support by plausible evidence various hypotheses, to which the only effective objection is that other hypotheses are equally legitimate and that the facts are too imperfect to allow of conclusions being drawn."¹ Caution, indeed, must be the governing principle of all endeavours to elucidate the political ideas and institutions of the ancient Hindus For instance, it is desirable to work on the assumption of later dates of books for which higher chronological limits are possible but not at all certain. To antedate any phenomena would be to weaken the very foundations of whatever hypotheses one may build. Another caution, equally essential, is to resist the ever-present temptation of “combining information.” A picture, constructed from texts separated by hundreds or thousands of years, may be fascinating in its fulness but may not be true of any given epoch. Similarly, documents from regions far apart cannot be used for a single area. In the uncertainty of dates and the obscurity of the whole subject, every document should, as a general rule, be handled by itself and then joined to others only on the surest possible ground. The application of the most rigid critical standards alone can serve to illuminate the subject and, it may be, to add a new chapter to the science of Comparative Politics.

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¹ Cambridge History of India, vol. I, pp. 78-79.

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The nature and working of Hindu political institutions were largely affected by geography, racial characteristics, social organisation and economic conditions. Geographical factors have, more than anything else, determined the trend of Indian political history. While the Himâlayas have, for the most part, formed an impenetrable wall on the North, the openings on the North-west have let in successive hordes of immigrants and invaders who brought with them new types of civilisation, new ideas and institutions. Again, the north-western passes facilitated commercial and general intercourse between India and the Middle East. Recent excavations and discoveries, carried out chiefly by Sir Aurel Stein, have proved that the extensive desert which bars inter-communication at present was not so arid two thousand years ago, and that in Baluchistân and Seistân there existed flourishing sites of civilisation which were abandoned, with the gradual drying up of the land, only after the second century B. C. The chances for an exchange of cultural and political influences with Persia, might, *prima facie*, have had something to do with the development of Hindu practices. Within the frontiers of India there are hills and valleys in the North, North-west,

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The Influence of Geography.

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North-east, in Central India and on the western coast, which afforded shelter to hard-pressed tribes and clans and enabled them to preserve their peculiar institutions. In the North, the vast Indo-Gangetic plains, flat and monotonous, have largely determined the form of political organisation. Here the contrast with Greece is complete. In Greece, as Zimmern puts it, " each little plain, rigidly sealed within its mountain barriers, and with its population concentrated upon its small portion of good soil, seems formed to be a complete world of its own. Make your way up the pasture land, over the pass and down on to the fields and orchards on the other side, and you will find new traditions and customs, new laws and new gods, and most probably a new dialect. You will be in a new nation."' In North India, the absence of any hills, lakes or unfordable rivers militated against the permanence of political boundaries. *Prima facie*, every state would tend, as it were naturally, to encroach upon its neighbours. It was not long before public opinion and political philosophy held up to admiration the ideal of the " big kingdom," " the kingdom extending up to the sea," " the universal dominion." Constant efforts were made to realise the ideal in some practical form or other, in reality or in name. The result was almost incessant warfare or readiness for war which was bound to influence the structure and working of governmental institutions. It would promote the monarchy as against other forms of government. It might mean heavy military expenditure and correspondingly heavy taxation. Whenever an extensive dominion came into being, the difficulty of communications,—the standing difficulty of all pre-modern governments—might prove well-nigh insurmountable. The authority at the centre could not easily make itself felt at the circumference. Rigid centralisation would be impracticable. Regional autonomy would

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¹ A. E. Zimmern, Greek Commonwealth, pp. 62-63.

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tend to be the rule. Nor would an "empire" under such circumstances hold together long even nominally. The outlying regions would constantly be tempted to cut themselves adrift from the main body, to start on an absolutely independent career and, in their turn, to make a bid for supremacy. Once again, at the first signs of weakness or pressure at the new centre, the old process might re-start round another point. Indian political history would thus resolve itself into a ceaseless play of the centripetal and centrifugal forces in which the latter would, on the whole, prove stronger than the former.

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India is split into two halves by the Vindhyas and Satpuras. Nothing like the Himâlayas, these chains of hills and mountains allow free intercourse between the North on the one hand and the Deccan, as the table-land is called, and the country south of the Kriṣṇâ on the other hand. But they have served to make the two regions different in race, language and partly in culture. Within the peninsula again, the Deccan plateau is in geographical configuration different from the extreme south and differs from it essentially in race, language and character. Politically, India is divided into three great entities, each with a system of its own. More energetic and persistent than the quest for the suzerainty of the whole country, has been the quest for supremacy over the North, over the Deccan and over the South as a whole. In particular, the region known as Tâmilakam, extending from the south of Madras to Cape Comorin, has a strong individuality of its own. In spite of centuries of Âryan contact and influence, its civilisation has run an independent career. The admixture of Âryan blood is small; the languages contain few Sanskrit words; the political institutions show many important peculiarities. In the extreme south-west of India the Malâbâr, sheltered by the Western range and the sea from outside influences, is still a museum of sociological curiosities. There is, however, no evidence to prove that its institutions represent a survival of those which once prevailed over the whole of the south or beyond. Further up, the sea and the Western Ghāts, running for hundreds of miles along the coast, enclose a narrow strip of land, called the Koṅkan,¹ which reared a hardy, sturdy race and enabled it to preserve and develop its peculiar institutions. Beyond the bounds of India proper lies the island of Siṃhala or Ceylon which, for centuries, shared in the history of Southern India and, to a far lesser extent, in that of India as a whole. Politically, however, it is an entity by itself. It is desirable that in any administrative survey the North, the Deccan, the South and Ceylon should be primarily treated by themselves. Since, however, they frequently influenced one another and since proximity and similarity of certain conditions made their institutions alike in some respects, the administrative history of any of the four areas can be enriched by comparison with that of the others and by illustration from them.

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¹ For a graphic description of the Ghāts, see Elphinstone, History of India, ed. Cowell, pp. 600-601.

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The most striking resemblance between the North of India and the rest of the country lies in the domain of economic life. Agriculture has been the predominant occupation of the whole country. The methods of agriculture have been practically the same everywhere and for the whole of recorded history. The conservatism which the pursuit of agriculture tends to produce has therefore been a common feature. Owing to the absence of any serious economic change, the framework of social and political life has not altered much. Besides giving the institutions a remarkable fixity, the dominance of agriculture has partly determined their form and character. The vast majority

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of the population have lived in scattered villages. The proportion of the rural to the urban element was, in all probability, even higher in ancient India than at present. The population itself was much smaller and therefore even more dispersed than at present. The Hâthî-gumphâ inscription of Khâravela of Kalinga ( C. 165 B.C. ) puts the population of Kalinga, roughly modern Orissâ, at three millions and a half. A comparison of this figure with the figures available for the Kalinga army and the casualties in a former war and then a comparison with the numbers of the armies given for other regions, and, finally, a comparison with the present population of Orissâ, indicate, very roughly, a hundred millions as the population of the country. The mention of pastures and forests in Hindu literature and the general tenour of the foreign accounts also leave the impression that the country was not so thickly populated in ancient times as at present. No certainty is possible in a matter like this. But the rough indications are that in ancient times the population of India was about one-third of its present strength. It was thus even more diffused among villages than at present. Such a condition was not favourable to the development of that intensity of life which characterized parts of ancient Greece and which issued in democratic organisation. Not only was this vital condition of democracy wanting, but the usual size of a state and the difficulty of communications put direct or representative democracy as a form of central government out of the question. Besides, the essential moral basis of democracy was destroyed by the operation of caste which cut the population into at least four and generally many more racial, occupational or social groups, held in varying degrees of esteem. Caste, however, also struck against aristocracy as a

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Population.

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Form of Government.

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Caste.

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form of government. It distributed the intellectual, martial and economic strength of the community among various sections and prevented that concentration of power in a single group which might enable it to dominate the rest. The elimination of democracy and aristocracy left the monarchy as the dominant type of government. Nothing else could meet the situation created by the conjuncture of geographical, economic and social factors. The monarchy alone could symbolise the union of any considerable area of territory.

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On the other hand, the dominant sway of agriculture made the village the unit of society and, therefore, of political organisation. A village would, of course, share in the general culture of the land. But in the ordinary routine of life, it would tend to be a world by itself. Everything would tend to intensify its group-consciousness. For fiscal and administrative purposes it would be the starting-point of all arrangements. Higher divisions of local government might be formed by grouping successively larger numbers of villages together.

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While agriculture was the principal occupation, industry and commerce would be pursued by numbers of persons in every locality. Industry has always shown a tendency to organise itself in guilds. The guild, as a modern writer remarks, is indeed a structure which, at one period or another, has existed over practically the whole of the civilised world. In medieval Europe, industry was carried on under a system of enterprise at once public and private, associative and individual. The unit of production was the workshop of the individual master craftsman; but the craftsman held his position as a master only by virtue of full membership in his Craft-Guild. He was not free to adopt any methods of production, or any scale of production he might choose; he was subjected to an elaborate regulation of both the quality and the quantity of his products, of the price he should charge to the consumer, and of his relations to his journeymen and his apprentices. He worked within a clearly defined code of rules which had the object at once of safeguarding the independence, equality, and prosperity of the craftsmen, of keeping broad the highway of promotion from apprentice to journeyman, and from journeyman to master; and also of prescribing the integrity and well-being of the craft by guarding the consumer against exploitation and shoddy goods.”¹ Conditions in ancient India were, of course, different in many important respects from those in medieval Europe. But the basic principle is the same. Throughout the greater part of ancient Indian history, guilds in some form or other are met with and have an important bearing on the state.

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¹ G. D. H. Cole, Introduction to Terry’s Translation of Renard’s Guilds in the Middle Ages, pp. xiii-xiv.

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The influence of race as a determinant of the course of social and political evolution cannot be traced so readily as that of geography or economic conditions. “National Character” has been the subject of some strange theories. As an English political writer puts it, national character is a wonder-worker at the beck and call of every embarrassed historian. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that a mass of men in a given region often differ in important psychological traits from another group. The ultimate origin of these differences may be traceable to geography,—to soil, climate and resulting habits of life and thought—but the presence of a set of deep-seated psychological traits constitutes a series of influences by itself in historical times. The “innate characteristics,” as they may be called, have not been the same everywhere in India. For instance, the Tâmil character which has so profoundly impressed the whole of South India is an entity by itself. The temperament of the Marâthâs who, of all Indian communities, come nearest to the Teutons in their intellectual and moral make-up, differs much from that of the people of Bengal or the Puñjâb. Yet behind all the diversities it is possible to discern some common characteristics, which, in their aggregate, sharply differentiate the people of India from those of any other country. The Indian temperament displays an emotional flow and vibration which, on the whole, militates against rigidity of discipline and organisation and bars uniformity in associated life. The religiosity of the Hindus is proverbial but there never arose any ecclesiastical organisation like the Roman Catholic Church or the Anglican Church. The Buddhist Saṃgha which represented the maximum of organisation in Hindu religious life, was pervaded by a spirit of intense localism. The Jaina orders were more loose, while the Brâhmaṇas seem to have been positively averse to ecclesiastical systematisation Prayer and worship which have been congregational in Europe have, for the most part, been individual among Hindus. Here culture has been embodied in institutions to a far lesser extent than in the West. It is true that in certain matters, for instance, in ritual and caste, a degree of discipline was prescribed and an amount of organisation attempted, which is unknown in Western Europe. But even here endless multiplicity of forms and diversity of details are apparent. Again, a caste or a subcaste rarely had a definite machinery of government, legislative, executive or judicial. It left a great deal to the operation of custom and the informal working of group-opinion. This lack of organisation goes a long way to discount the Brahmanic claims to supremacy which fill Brahmanic literature. Whatever the theorists might say, the fact remained that the Brâhmaṇas had no organisation, no independent financial resources, no effective means of

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resisting a king. Ultimately, they depended on the king, the landed magnates or the community at large for grants, fees, and presents. In economic life, too, the organisation was never so strict in ancient India as in Europe. The guilds, essentially local in character, were never well-knit together. In the political conditions which obtained in ancient India, this habit of loose organisation would tend to produce a sort of federalism or feudalism—feudalism which represents want of system rather than a system. This trait in the Hindu character was intensified by the imaginativeness which was another striking feature in the temperament of the ancient Hindus. To soar above the earth was often to lose touch with realities and to drift away from system. On the other hand, the Hindu mind was remarkable for its love of logic. It delighted in classification, division and endless sub-division. In practical life it sometimes pursued logic with extraordinary tenacity and tended to run an idea to its extreme consequences. Here is one of the causes of the growth of caste. Europe stopped at class; Hindu India rushed into caste.

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Caste, which formed the basis of the social order, was, along with geography, race and economic postulates, a great factor in the political life of the Hindus. Apart from the fact that it ruled out democracy or aristocracy as a form of government for a state as a whole, it deeply influenced the nature, character and working of the monarchical state. Caste resolves function into a purpose, an ethical principle, a religious conception. In the exaltation of the group, it largely sacrifices the individual values. It strikes at the root of individuality and amounts almost to a denial of personality. It refuses to admit that every individual is, in his nature, universal and that he has the right to seek his own self-expression, to determine his own ambitions and pursue his own interests. The principle of caste is the negation of the dignity of man as man. It rules out all idea of individual liberty or rights independently of those which arise from the necessity and desirability of performing prescribed social functions. Hence, there was no effort in the history of Hindu politics to define the spheres of individuality on the one hand, and the group or state on the other hand. "Laissez-faire" had no basis in ancient India. When it liked, society could direct everything pertaining to human life.

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Caste would naturally influence the composition of the governing body. It would entrust government to the Kṣatriyas and, though the rule was sometimes violated, its prescription was generally effective. At the same time the Brāhmaṇas were, socially and religiously too important and, intellectually, too powerful, to be left out of political counsels. Brāhmaṇa priests or ministers were often by the side of the king. Legal difficulties were often submitted to Brāhmaṇa pariṣads or committees for solution. Attempts were made to enlist the moral support of the Brāhmaṇas for the government. Law, which is an expression of the social spirit, reflected caste at numerous points in ancient India.

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Caste fosters group-psychology as opposed to an independent individual mentality or national consciousness. It helps the tendency towards functional organisation. Among the ancient Hindus, organisation, though loose in degree, tended to be both horizontal and vertical. There might arise multitudes of local and functional jurisdictions and intermediate associations standing in various, more or less ill-defined, relations with the state. Every group which has developed a consciousness, tends to be independent or quasi-independent in its own sphere. It rests with the state to co-ordinate the working of these groups, to keep each within its proper limits and, generally, to secure those conditions under which they can flourish to the best advantage of the common good. The extent to which the state can fulfil this function of co-ordination and security is likely to depend on its intrinsic strength and animating spirit and the whole set of circumstances at a given moment. In this whole series of relationships, custom is likely to be the guiding principle, if written positive law is wanting. In such a case, sovereignty would cease to be monistic. In the rigid Austinian sense of the term, it would disappear altogether. It would be essentially pluralistic, diffused among myriads of groups, particulate jurisdictions and influences. Such was the situation which a conjuncture of basic circumstances brought about in ancient India.

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Religion must be reckoned among the great factors in the history of the Hindus. Brahmanism sanctified caste and entrenched it firmly in the estimation of the people. It made law part of itself and thus tended to impart to it strength, conservatism and permanence. Religion sought to direct the life of the rulers as of the rest of the community. It inculcated charity, gentleness and promotion of popular happiness on the part of the king. It held a spiritual ideal before the state. It could serve as a moral check on the despotism. Occasionally, it might become the animating principle of the policy of the state. Under a king like Aśoka, the state might become actively missionary. Religious change was likely to tell on politics. The rise of Buddhism and Jainism shook the political position of Brāhmaṇas for a while. Incidentally, religion emphasised renunciation of the world and led many rulers to abdicate in favour of their sons or relations.

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Such were the principal determining factors in the development and working of political institutions in ancient India. They were common to the North, the Deccan and the South and to all, except, perhaps, the most ancient, periods of the early history of India, though their actual force would necessarily vary from time to time and place to place. The history of India as a whole has generally been viewed from the North. But several years ago, a noted Southern scholar, the late Sundaram Pillai, laid down that "the attempt to find the basic element of Hindu civilisation by a study of Sanskrit and the history of Sanskrit in Upper India is to begin the problem at its worst and most complicated point. India, south of the Vindhyas—the Peninsular India—still continues to be India proper. Here the bulk of the people continue distinctly to retain their pre-Aryan features, their pre-Aryan languages, their pre-Aryan social institutions. Even here, the process of Aryanisation has gone indeed too far to leave it easy to the historian to distinguish the native warp from the foreign woof. But, if there is anywhere any chance of such successful disentanglement, it is in the south: and the farther south we go, the larger does the chance grow.

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The South?

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"The scientific historian of India, then, ought to begin his study with the basin of the Kṛṣṇā, the Cauvery of the Vaigai, rather than with the Gangetic plain, as it has been now long, too long, the fashion."¹

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¹ Tamilian Antiquary, 1908, p. 4.

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But if one prepares to depart from the old fashion, one meets with an insurmountable obstacle at the very threshold. It is possible that the Tāmils began their institutional career earlier than any people of the north but their early forms and working are lost to us. The oldest available southern records are considerably later in date than the earliest extant northern documents. A few Tāmil scholars have tried to prove that Tāmil literature embodies tradition as old as 12000 B. C. or even earlier. But their arguments have been contested by other Tāmil scholars. They proceed on the basis of the very tradition of which the soundness has to be proved. If critical standards be rigidly applied, one can rarely go beyond the Christian era on the basis of Tâmil data. Social institutions and practices which leave their mark on customs and ceremonies may be traced to earlier beginnings, though, even here, the process is beset with difficulties at every step. But in relation to political institutions, the southern material does not carry us, in point of time, beyond the period which is fairly illuminated by northern evidence. If it did, it would be necessary to preface any political survey of the North with a chapter on the South. As it is, even the score of inscriptions discovered in the South a few months ago do not touch the other side of the Christian era. A discussion of Hindu political institutions must still start from the North.

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The date, authenticity and value of each piece or class of evidence will be discussed as it is used in the following chapters. But a word may be said on the relative value of the data available. The inscriptions must form the basis of any study of Hindu political institutions. Here some very remarkable personages proclaim their aspirations, motives, and achievements. Here the actions of numerous kings, officers, private individuals or groups are recorded by contemporaries, with reference to the social, economic and political circumstances of the times. The epigraphic records are supplemented by coins of which the legends, though brief, sometimes settle doubtful dates, introduce new names and titles and occasionally illuminate an obscure political situation. The few seals which have so far been discovered are equally useful. The remains of old buildings, towns, caves or tanks sometimes serve as valuable illustrations. Next in value stand the accounts of foreign observers, Greek, Chinese and Arab, which, in the case of the last two classes of writers, have been transmitted at first hand. The Greek notices, preserved only in later extracts, cannot be accepted at their face value but they are, none the less, very useful. The next place must be assigned to the few Hindu chronicles or biographies, such as the Harṣacarita of Bāṇabhaṭṭa, the Rājatarangiṇī of Kalhaṇa and the Vikramāṅkadevacarita of Bilhaṇa, which throw a flood of light on the structure and working of political institutions. Finally, there is the vast range of Hindu literatures, Sanskrit, mixed Sanskrit, Pāli, Brahmanic, Buddhist and Jaina, religious, legal, political, secular; from which administrative gleanings have to be made. Owing to the uncertainties of the dates of Hindu literary productions which sometimes range over centuries and occasionally transcend a whole millenium, and from the theoretical character of a good many of them, the value of this kind of evidence is largely supplementary, comparative and illustrative. However, it does sometimes reflect the actual state of things or paint an ideal not far removed from reality. It is unfortunate that the epigraphic records and foreign accounts do not begin until the fourth century B.C. For the preceding centuries one has to rely entirely on literature.

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