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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c13.s3.t5: 6. Hemachandra's Laghu Arhannīti

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c13.s3.t5

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6. Hemachandra's Laghu Arhannīti

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In the *Laghu Arhannīti*²³ of Hemachandra (1089-1173), the small Jaina work in Sanskrit verse, we have, as it were, an interpretation of Hindu culture through Jaina eyes. *Nītiśāstra* is declared by the author to have been taught by Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism himself, to the king of Magadha, who approached him for lessons in this science. And in Mahāvīra's version the science sprang out of the Tīrthamkara *milieu*. The first king of the Jaina tradition, namely Ṛiṣabha, is, according to Mahāvīra, the founder or rather restorer of *Nīti* among the Bhāratas. They are said to have lost their former glories owing to the inroads of the *Kali* (Iron) Age. And so in Ṛiṣabha we are taught to see a benefactor who placed the Bhāratas on the proper lines of progress. It is interesting that Mahāvīra does not ignore the *dharmam purātanam* (the old, previous or traditional *mores*). It is out of the old *mores* that Ṛiṣabha is presented by him as having constructed the new (I. 14-15).

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²³ Published by the Jainodaya Press, Ahmedabad, with Gujarati translation, 1906.

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Among the achievements of Ṛiṣabha (I. 15-17), as narrated by Mahāvīra to king Bimbisāra, we have the promulgation of the following :—(1) the societal stratification according to *varṇas* (colours, castes or professions) and *āśramas* (physiologico-psychological stages of individual personality), (2) the method of reforming or reconstructing the social system, (3) farming, commerce and crafts, (4) judicial matters, (5) statecraft of rulers (*nītimārgaṁcha bhūpānām*), (6) the laying out of towns and villages, (7) all the sciences (*vidyā*) (8) all the activities (*kriyā*) bearing on this world as well as the next. In this enumeration of Ṛiṣabha's promulgations we have in reality Hemachandra's conception of the scope of *Nītiśāstra*.

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The first *Adhikāra* or chapter has the following topics: 1. Qualifications of the King, 2. Moral disciplines of Kings. 3. Qualifications of Ministers. 4. Education of Ministers. 5. Qualifications of the General. 6. Education of Officials. 7. Qualifications of the Representative or Ambassador.

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Chapter II. has the following topics: 1. Discussion of policy. 2. Four Methods (*Upāyas*). 3. Expeditions. 4. Distribution of booty. 5. Punishments, general and special. 6. Who are not to be punished.

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In chapter III. the following subjects have demanded the author's attention:—1. Judicial proceedings (The material is partly in prose some of which is Prakrit). 2. Witnesses, 3. Debts, 4. Securities, 5. Collective Organizations (*sambhūyotthāna*), 6. Gifts, 7. Partition of property (*Dāyabhāga*), 8. Boundary Disputes, 9. Wage, 10. Buying and selling, 11. Master and servant disputes, 12. Deposits, 13. Unowned property, 14. Abuse and Slander, 15. Breach of contract, 16. Adultery, 17. Gambling, 18. Theft, 19. Burglary, 20. Amounts of Punishment, 21. Duties of man and woman.

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In the fourth chapter are described the penances of all sorts. There are prose passages in Chapters II, and III as in I.

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Hemachandra's work is described as *laghu* or small. But it is really comprehensive. Its scope is wider in certain respects than that of Somadeva's *Nītivākyāmrita*. The chapters on law are full and deserve intensive analysis for comparison with ordinary Brāhmaṇic (Manu) texts. The chapters on punishment have many details which ought to be interesting to students of criminology. Altogether, it is a valuable document of Hindu positivism, from the Jaina side, for the twelfth century.

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The author has commenced the work (I. 6) with a reference to king Kumārapāla on account of whose interest (*āgraha*) *Arhannīti śāstra* was composed. It is out of that work, evidently large in size, that Hemachandra has extracted the essence in order to prepare the *Laghu Arhannīti*. In the Jaina tradition as in the Hindu-Brāhmaṇic the role of abridgment is a literary convention, which is to be taken for what it is worth.

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