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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 c9.s1: I.—The Bṛihaddevatâ

The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c9.s1

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I.—The Bṛihaddevatâ

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About the fifth century B.C. was composed a work which, though not included in Śruti or revelation, bears a strong affinity to Vedic literature in spirit, though not in style. The Bṛihaddevatâ, attributed to Śaunaka, is a summary of the deities and myths of the Ṛigveda.¹ It assumes the form of an epic but, as Macdonell shows, it does not borrow from the Mahâbhârata. It has one political reference of some interest. On the demise of a sovereign Riṣiṣeṇa, the subjects offer the sovereignty to his son Devâpi, who, however being afflicted with a skin disease, declines it, saying, "I am not worthy of the sovereignty; let Śaṃtânu, the younger prince, be your ruler."² It will appear that the kingship was avowedly hereditary, that the succession ordinarily went by the rule of primogeniture, that the subjects formally accepted a new king, that they even made a formal offer of the throne, that physical disability was a sufficient reason for departing from the ordinary rule of succession and that, next to the eldest prince, the younger had a presumptive title to the sceptre. Beyond this the Bṛihaddevatā throws no light on institutions.¹

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¹ The Bṛihaddevatâ has been edited and translated by A. A. Macdonell and published at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1904. Macdonell pronounces it later than 500 B.C., but earlier than Kâtyâyana and in no case later than 400 B.C. (Introduction, pp. xxii-xxiii). See also Keith, J. R. A. S., 1906, pp. 1-3.

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² Bṛihaddevatâ, VII, 156-57; VIII, 1.

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¹ In a note to VIII, 2, Macdonell notes that some Mss. read Rāṣṭra for Rājya in the ordinary sense. It is clear that Rāṣṭra did not yet possess the fiscal significance which it has in some later writers. Nor did it mean a province, as distinct from the whole kingdom.

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