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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s9.t6: 6. Mitra-Miśra's Rājanītiprakāśa

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s9.t6

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6. Mitra-Miśra's Rājanītiprakāśa

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An entirely new milieu is furnished by his contemporary, Mitra-Miśra, another Northerner like himself. Mitra-Miśra is a "modernist." To him the past has virtually buried its dead. He appreciates as a rule all those literary men who have risen in post-classic ages and written for their generations. The classics he does not hate. But he does not make any special propaganda in their favour. To him the *Purāṇas* embody the spirit of the age, and in the *Purāṇas* he sees the classics reborn or reinterpreted, modernized and popularized. Mitra-Miśra's work enables us to feel the breath of the generation in which he lives.

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The *Rājanītiprakāśa* of Mitra-Miśra³ is another "virtually" dated work because its author is known in the colophons (pp. 195-196, 493) to have been associated as scholar with the court of Vīrasiṃhadeva (reigned 1605-1627), son of Madhukarasāha, and grandson of Mahārājādhirāja Pratāparudra, King of Orchchha. Vīrasiṃha also is known to have killed Abul Fazl, the minister of Akbar and the author of *Ain-i-Akbari*. The work then belongs to the first half of the seventeenth century and points to the philosophical and cultural milieu of the Hindus in the most brilliant epoch of the great Moghuls.

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³ Lala Sitaram : "Bir Sing Deo" (*Calcutta Review*, May and July, 1924). See also H. Blochmann's biography of Abul Fazl which accompanies the former's English translation of the latter's *Ain-i-Akbari* (Calcutta 1873), vol. I, pp. xxiv-xxvii.

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From the dates given about King Vīrasiṃhadeva it is clear that his reign coincided from beginning to end with the Imperial rule of Jahangir (1605-1627). Akbar died, be it noted, in 1605. We are told that Mitra-Miśra was "ordered" (ājnapto) by Vīrasiṃha to prepare the nibandha called *Vīramitrodaya* (p. 8). But whether it was completed by 1627 we do not know. Besides, the *Vīramitrodaya* is an encyclopaedic work like Hemādri's *Chaturvargachintāmaṇi* and is a compendium on the most diverse branches of law. The *Rājanītiprakāśa* is a part of this encyclopaedia and, as the title implies, deals with public law. The order in which the different portions were composed cannot yet be ascertained. It is not improbable that the volume *Rājanītiprakāśa* as well as some other volumes, were composed after Vīrasiṃha's and Jahangir's time, i.e., during the Imperial rule of Shahjahan (1627-1658). In any case, the *Vīramitrodaya* is associated with the glorious age of Indo-Saracenic Renaissance, nay, one of the greatest epochs of world culture.

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The *Rājanītiprakāśa*⁴ is a bulky volume of 493 pages, none of which are requisitioned by footnotes. From the standpoint of size it is as large as the *Kauṭalīya Arthaśāstra* or the *Śukranītisāra*, if not larger. It is perhaps the most extensive treatise on politics in Hindu literature.

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⁴ Text in the Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series (Benares 1916).

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Incidentally be it observed that the *Rājanītiprakāśa* is described as *ruchira* (beautiful) by the author while mentioning (p. 8) that it has been prepared by him under command of Vīrasiṃha, "the ornament or jewel of kings" (*kṣitipatitilaka*).

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There is no table of contents or preface published by the editor Paṇḍit Viṣṇu Prasad along with the text. The more important topics can be seen, however, in the following description :

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1. The king as a category (*rājaśavda*) of political thought : i. any and every ruler or protector of people? (*kimayam rājaśavdo jasminkasmiṅśchit prajāpālake vartate?*) ii. or only *kṣatriya*? iii. or a consecrated *kṣatriya*? (p. 10).

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2. The Appreciation of kingship. Mitra-Miśra quotes the *Kālikā Purāṇa* which says that the king is the son of the sonless, the wealth of the unwealthy, the mother of the motherless, the father of the fatherless, the shelter or help of the unprotected, the husband of the husbandless, the servant of the servantless (*abhrityasya nripo bhrityah*), and the comrade of men (*nripa eva nriṇām sakhā*) (p. 30).

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3. The Appropriate Time of Consecration.

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4. The Successor to the State : the Eldest son. No title of the other sons to the State. No partition of the state (p. 31).

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5. The Consecration Ceremony, as described in the *Brahma Purāṇa*, the *Rāmāyaṇa*, *Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa*, *Vriddhavasiṣṭha Purāṇa*.

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6. The Consecration Hymn of the *Viṣṇudharmottara*. The king is blest with the wish that he may enjoy the *prithivīm samagrām sasāgarām* (entire world together with the seas) (p. 81).

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The Consecration Ceremony according to the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*.

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7. The Monthly and Annual ceremonies.

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8. The Qualifications of kings.

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9. The Duties of kings. Mitra-Miśra quotes the *Viṣṇudharmottara* to say that the king does not have to make up for the householder's losses caused by thieving in case the latter's servants are the thieves. The ruling is in modification of that of Yājnavalkya whose recommendation to the effect that the subjects are to be compensated by the king for their losses due to thieving is too universal (p. 127).

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10. Things forbidden for kings.

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11. The Daily time-table.

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12. The Annual Ceremonies.

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13. The King's Assistants: The ministers, officials and servants.

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14. The Residential Country, the Fort, the City.

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15. Things to be stored in the fort. The lengthy section is derived from the *Matsya Purāṇa* (pp. 206-213).

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16. Townplanning according to the *Devī Purāṇa*.

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17. House-construction according to the *Matsya-Purāṇa*, *Āśvalyāna Grihyasūtra*, *Viṣṇudharmottara*.

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18. Garden construction as recommended in the *Viṣṇudharmottara*.

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19. The Territory as one of the Seven Limbs.

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20. The Treasure: This section dealing as it does with public finance is fairly lengthy and is derived from the *Viṣṇudharmottara*, *Mahābhārata*, Manu, Gautama, Brihaspati, Yājnavalkya, Vaśiṣtha and so forth.

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21. The Army.

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22. The Ally.

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23. The Four *Upāyas* (Policies or Forms of Dealings with Enemies).

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24. Punishment in one's own state as well as in the enemy's.

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25. The Three Additional Upāyas (*Upekṣā* = Insult ? *Māyā* = Camouflage ? *Indrajāla* = magic ?).

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26. Policy.

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27. Energy (*Pauruṣa*).

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28. Protection and Education of Princes.

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29. Peace.

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30. Maṇḍala (or "geopolitical" sphere) of Twelve States (*Dvādaśarājamaṇḍala*). According to Mitra-Miśra the *vijigīṣu* is the prince bent on or starting on a career of conquest (*vijetumabhyudyata*). In his definition the *madhyama* is the one that is able to overpower both the *vijigīṣu* as well as his *ari* (enemy) as long as they are uncombined (*asaṁhatayor nigrahe*), i.e. more powerful than either of the two. It is wrong, therefore, to describe, as has been usually done, the *madhyama* as the medium or the middling power. The *udāsīna*, as defined by Mitra-Miśra, is more powerful than each of the three states, the *vijigīṣu*, the *ari*, and the *madhyama*. He is such that he can subdue these three as long as they remain ununited (*asaṁhatānām nigrahasamartha*) (pp. 320-321).

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31. The Six Attitudes or Measures *vis-à-vis* the Enemy (*Ṣāḍguṇya*): Military Strategy and Tactics.

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32. Expeditions.

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33. Dreams in connection with Expeditions.

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34. The War-hymns in "consecration" of the umbrella, horse, flag, elephant, dagger, leather, drum, bow, etc.

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35. Auspicious signs and inauspicious omens in connection with expeditions.

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36. The *Jayābhiṣeka* (victory-sacrifice) to be undertaken on the eve of the expedition. The ceremony is calculated to ward off unnatural death, i.e., death in the battle-field and ensure the conquest of all enemies. This is the lengthiest section in the *Rājanītiprakāśa*, and is derived from the *Linga Purāṇa*.

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37. The Troop-formations for the Expeditions.

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38. The Duties in war. The *Mahābhārata* is quoted to show that the Brāhmaṇa also has to fight. Devala is quoted to impress upon the soldiers that death in battle leads at once to heaven.

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39. The duties of the conqueror *vis-à-vis* the conquered.

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40. Festivals and religious ceremonies during the fourth month while in foreign territories.

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41. *Indradhvajochchhraya* (festival in honour of Indra).

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42. *Nīrājanāśānti* (festival to celebrate the peace).

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43. Worship of Kālī.

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44. *Lohābhisārika* (post-war festivals).

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45. *Gavotsarga* (post-war festivals).

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46. *Vasudhara* (post-war festivals).

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47. *Satrunāśana* (post-war festivals).

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48. Miscellaneous. The Teachings of Vidura in the *Mahābhārata*.

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Mitra-Miśra's references are varied. In erudition and scholarship he is not to be beaten either by Hemādri or by Chaṇḍeśvara. It is perhaps worth while to mention that he attaches great importance to the *Purāṇas*. The *Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa* has commanded his special attention. Evidently in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this *Purāṇa* held a very high place in the intellectual and social life of India.

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Like all other *nibandhas* the *Rājanītiprakāśa* is a compilation or digest of original texts. It is not a commentary on a text although it is once in a while furnished with explanations of words or phrases. Thus considered the author or compiler of the *Vīramitrodaya* may be regarded as having contributed nothing to political science or to the other branches of law summarized in his encyclopaedia.

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But it is interesting here to recall that all those treatises on *dharma*, *artha* or *kāma* which are known to be "original" as the works composed by an individual master or his followers (school) almost invariably describe themselves as summaries or compilations of the works written by previous sages. The place of "old masters" is an inevitable item in the documents of Indian thought. Once we are adequately oriented to this item we should be careful not to make any great fuss about the problem of originality of the alleged author's own contribution in Hindu *śāstras*. In other words, a *nibandha*, nay, a *bhāṣya* is not virtually to be treated as less original than the work on which the *bhāṣya* is written or on the basis of which the *nibandha* is compiled. Should the statements of the authors about their borrowings, compilations or summaries from "old masters" be taken at their face value, and not treated as occasioned by mock modesty or perhaps excessive indulgence in genuine humility, we have only to take them essentially as *nibandhas* although they have not cared to quote the texts *verbatim* such as has been done by the writers of *nibandhas* in so many words. A man like Hemādri, Chaṇḍeśvara or Mitra-Miśra could easily have paraphrased in their own language all the texts they have reproduced with just an indication as to the source in the form of *iti Manuh*, *iti Agnih* and so forth. In that case they might have acquired the same place *proforma* in the imagination of the reading public as, say, Kauṭalya, Manu, Kāmandaka, Brihaspati, Śukra and others.

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In the *Rājanītiprakāśa* Mitra-Miśra has shown as keen interest and as laborious research as Kauṭalya and Śukra. He has not tried to skip over the problems in a hurried manner. In details he is plentiful. Whenever necessary he is prepared to enter into controversies, i.e., quote original texts from the most heterogeneous sources. Although by profession a "mere scholar" or Paṇḍit he is a practical man and writes with an eye to the utility of his *ruchira* (attractive) science. He knows that his work is to be used by rulers, ministers, generals and statesmen. In regard to the question of war and peace he is a *pucca* Brāhmaṇa and continues the tradition of the greatest of the Brāhmaṇas since the Vedic ages, so far as he considers international problems to be the most profound concerns of daily life. He has not, therefore, indulged in platitudes. Foreign policy, diplomacy, international relations,—these are the topics in which every Brāhmaṇa philosopher of politics from the earliest times has exhibited his *forte* as statesman, and aye, as *paṇḍit* or scholar. And Mitra-Miśra is a redoubtable "chip of the old block." Fifty per cent of the huge volume (pp. 248-493) he has consecrated to the profoundest reality of *saptāmga* and organized existence, namely, to foreign relations, and every word in these chapters has a message for all,—the ruler and the subjects,—as to the "duty that lies nearest thee."

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As a writer on positive morality and secular happiness and as one endowed with hardheaded mastery over the realities of flesh and blood nobody is a greater man than Mitra-Miśra in the entire range of Hindu culture. The seventeenth century is a great period of Hindu creativeness in the field of life's joys and worldly endeavours. In the *Rājanītiprakāśa* we understand not only that the best of Hindu tradition was being maintained through the *Purāṇas* but also that Mitra-Miśra himself knew what to select and what to propagate in the interests of his own generation. In this selective work he has really functioned as a creator, an original thinker, a man who knows that he has to re-make the personality of his contemporaries,—to reconstruct the Hindu states,—and to "whip the country into shape." Mitra-Miśra deserves the same recognition in the annals of Hindu life and thought as Rāmdās the *guru* of Śivāji (1627-1680). It is strange that such a work as the *Rājanītiprakāśa* should have remained virtually unused in indology although it undoubtedly is one of the masterpieces of Hindu intellectual activity, albeit, be it observed once more, it is but a *nibandha* or digest.

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Mitra-Miśra is a Northerner from the "Middle-West" and is a most distinguished representative of the so-called Benares school. But his writings were not confined to any particular Indian region. The *Rājanītiprakāśa*, like the other parts of the *Vīramitrodaya*, was read throughout India. A generation of *paṇḍits* or scholars was nurtured on the great Mitra-Miśra's teachings on the "politics of boundaries" and the theory of international relations (*dvādaśarājamaṇḍalam*). This may be easily taken to have constituted the Brāhmaṇic milieu that furnished the spiritual background of the still greater Śivāji's exploits in the Maratha country. Mitra-Miśra wrote for a great age and for the most momentous issues and he was quite up to the needs and requirements of the generation that looked up to him for guidance. With him the *Rājanītiprakāśa* is not an archaeological study or a dissertation of antiquarian research but an instrument of futurism, an agency in the re-making of the present. Nīlakaṇṭha, as we have seen, did not omit any important chapters; but his past-ridden spirit acts as a damper on the reader and one feels that he is not in touch with the times. Mitra-Miśra is made of another stuff. He has, besides, produced a voluminous work. The fullness of details and the diversity of viewpoints presented by him possess a charm of their own such as is entirely lacking in the almost niggardly manner in which Nīlakaṇṭha has gone to business with political science.

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The special importance attached by Mitra-Miśra to the *Purāṇas* has rendered him quite acceptable as an author even for the Hindus of the twentieth century. It is even possible to build up a twentieth century school of Indian political theory on the foundations of Mitra-Miśra. For the Hindus of today the *Purāṇas* represent the spirit of newspapers and journals, so to say, i.e., the most familiar, practical and life-serving literature conceivable. Manu and Yājnavalkya are authorities still by all means. But they are somewhat "archaic" and uncouth. They are respected, nay, perhaps, adored but from a distance. But in regard to the *Purāṇas* the attitudes and feelings of the Hindus are far otherwise. They are direct, personal, friendly. The *Purāṇas* are the manuals for the man in the bazaar. In so far as the *Rājanītiprakāśa* is nurtured mainly on the *Purāṇas*, the folk literature, as it were, of Hindu India we breathe in it a comradely atmosphere and through it come into contact with a democratic paraphernalia, the mass-mind. Mitra-Miśra as the author of this *liaison* between the folk and political *śāstra* can therefore still be the starting point of new superstructures constructed in accordance with the novel requirements of intercourse between the East and the West.

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In Mitra-Miśra's hands political science did not remain the preserve of high-brows. It became attractive to the people, a philosophy in which the people might see reviewed some of their own categories of daily life. *Nītiśāstra* was thus brought into the market-place. No matter what his views regarding the folk *vis-à-vis* the king happened to be, his very equipment as a literary workman served to make of him, unconsciously perhaps, a spokesman of the folk, a philosophical leader of the masses, an exponent of "mass-contacts."

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The position may be understood if we take a simple analogy from modern conditions. An Indian author today who writes in Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Tamil or Urdu is automatically taken as a man of the people, a representative of the people's aspirations, although he may not be writing specifically on the folk-interests. The contrast between such a writer and one who writes in a foreign tongue places him in bold relief in the folk imagination. The use of the mother-tongue, the language of the folk, as the vehicle of literary contributions establishes at once a spiritual nexus between the author's work and the mass-mind. Mitra-Miśra's dependence on the *Purāṇas*, those encyclopaedic storehouses of world-culture for the folk, those products of the Hindu Home University Library, as it were, and his extensive utilization of the *Purāṇa* texts in season and out of season have contributed to the establishment of *nītiśāstra* as a *vidyā* of the people and for the people. And in this tremendous expansion of its influence as well as in the transformation of its character is to be seen one of the most phenomenal achievements of Mitra-Miśra.

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From Kauṭalya to Mitra-Miśra we have a story of growth and progress in the annals of the world's philosophical evolution.

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