The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c9.s2.t1.35

c9.s2.t1.35

It was under such circumstances that government was carried on during the period of which the traditions are reflected in the Mahâbhârata. The administration was presided over by the king who was expected personally to propel the machine. According to the theory of the epic, he was to be the embodiment of all virtues, all beneficence and heroism.¹ But the main story as well as the secondary episodes of the Epic show the average king falling far short of the ideal. The monarchs are addicted too much to gambling and hunting; often they are ferocious, at times licentious. In the Sabhâ Parvan there is a debate on gambling which at last is approved.² The Kuru princes use fraud; Yudhiṣṭhira loses his all, including his wife who is wantonly insulted by the winners; Bhīma vows to drink the blood of Duryodhana—a vow which, later, he fulfils to his satisfaction.³ In the Droṇa-Parvan Duryodhana wants Yudhiṣṭhira to be captured alive so as to entice him to dice and then exile and ruin him once again.⁴ Under the fascination of dice, Nala completely neglects the affairs of state. The people of the city and the officers came to the palace "unable to bear the calamity that had befallen their king conversant with virtue and welfare.” But not even at his queen Damayantī’s request would the king see them. “Those councillors of state as also the citizens, afflicted with grief and shame, returned to their homes, saying, ‘He liveth not.’”¹ A little later, Damayantī herself called a council in the name of Nala. “When the subjects in a body had come a second time, the daughter of Bhīma informed Nala of it. But the king regarded her not.”² In the Epic the Pāṇḍus are sometimes spoken of masters of the Vedas and the rest of the sacred lore, but as one traces their career step by step, one meets with no regular intellectual training on their part. On the other hand, they receive a regular military training. Arjuna’s son Abhimanyu is a full-fledged warrior and is married at the age of sixteen.