The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c6.54

c6.54

The Jana once settled on a more or less definite piece of territory, probably including a number of villages, formed a small kingdom. It was headed by a Râjan, a king or a chief, normally hereditary.³ It is just the arrangement which the prevalence of warfare and the totality of social circumstances would, *a priori*, lead one to expect. In a later work of Vedic literature, the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, one of the true causes of the rise of the kingship seems to have been grasped. "The Devas and the Asuras were fighting...........The Asuras defeated the Devas. ....... ...The Devas said, 'It is on account of our having no chief (arâjatayâ) that the Asuras defeat us. Let us create a Râjan (râjânam karavâmahe).' All agreed."⁴ Similarly, the Taittiriya Brâhmaṇa records that "the Devas and Asuras joined in battle. Then Prajâpati concealed his eldest son Indra, lest he should be killed by the mighty Asuras. Prahlâda, the son of Kayadhu, likewise concealed his son Virocana, lest he should be killed by the Devas. The Devas went to Prajâpati and said, 'there can possibly be no battle for a state having no king.' Then they courted Indra to be their king with sacrifices."'⁵ It is hardly necessary to remark that what the gods or demons are supposed to do is only a reflection of what men actually do or are believed to have done. It is possible that the Aitareya passage or rather its original, whatever it might have been, enshrines a tradition that the Āryans had at first no regular military chiefs, that their enemies had such leaders, and that the example of the latter was followed by the former as a matter of expediency and necessity. Such a tradition might have been based partly on facts but there is no means of being perfectly sure of it.¹ All that can be reasonably inferred is that warfare which demands leadership and some concentration of authority, tended somehow to originate or strengthen the chiefship.