The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c9.s2.t1.120

c9.s2.t1.120

In the course of one of the most remarkable episodes in the epic Jarâsandha declares that it was a Kṣatirya’s duty to bring others under his sway by the display of his prowess and that he was justified in treating them as slaves.¹ He longs to make a hecatomb of a hundred ‘kings’ and had already collected eighty-six for the purpose when he was overpowered by Kṛṣṇa and the Pāṇḍus.² In the Vana Parvan it is stated that whatever sin a king commits in acquiring dominion, is expiated afterwards by means of sacrifices and gifts.³ While on this subject in the Śānti Parvan, Bhīṣma, the great exponent of righteousness, takes his stand on pure reason. He quotes Uśanas who, in days of yore, had told the Daityas that scriptures were no scriptures if they could not stand the test of reason. Under the pressure of abnormal circumstances, extraordinary maxims must be applied to the conduct of affairs—maxims which had brought ‘blazing prosperity’ to king Śatruñjaya to whom they were preached by an ancient sage. One should readily surrender before might and then seize the first opportunity to smash the powerful antagonist or suzerain. A king should remember that vanquished foes are always on the alert and can never be trusted. Secret diplomacy, hypocrisy of all sorts, “divide and rule,” corruption of the enemy’s forces or subjects, lavish use of gold and poison, ruthless severity, devastation of hostile territory, wholesale destruction of its population--such are the weapons recommended for dealing with enemies.⁴ The whole series of chapters on Āpaddharma in the Śānti Parvan⁵ remind one of Machiavelli. There are sentences, written with the “point of a stiletto" which may pass for quotations from "the Prince." The section, as a whole, may be styled, as Diderot proposed to style certain chapters of Machiavelli, as "the circumstances under which it is right for a prince to be a scoundrel." Like the Italian realist, the Epic poet "strips away the flowing garments of convention and commonplace; closes his will against sympathy and feeling; ignores pity as an irrelevance, just as the operating surgeon does." In both, the purpose is the same, "the secular state supreme, self-interest and self-regard, avowed as the single principle of state action; material force, the master-key to civil policy. Clear intelligence backed by unsparing will, unflinching energy, remorseless vigour, the brain to plan and the hand to strike—here is the salvation of states."¹ The political circumstances which primarily suggested these lines of thought were, in essentials, the same in medieval Italy as in Ancient India. In the Āśramavāsi Parvan, towards the close of the Mahābhārata, Dhṛtarāṣṭra enunciates to Yudhiṣṭhira the doctrine of Maṇḍala as the guiding principle of policy,² but these passages are very late.