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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s3: The Perspectives of Vedic Political Thought

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s3

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The Perspectives of Vedic Political Thought

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The right place of Vedic thought in the history of socio-political speculations requires yet to be appropriately grasped by indologists as well as students of sociology and comparative culture-history. Neither the polity nor the political thoughts of the Vedic *Ṛiṣis* (sages), should there be any, can be adequately explained if one approaches the subject from the angle of mythology and religion or from that of the life-history of the sacrificial priest like Vasiṣṭha or Viśvāmitra, nay, of the tribal chief like, say, Sudāsa. This is why, generally speaking, indologists are misled into one-sided views and fail to visualize the genuine problems of the "fire-sages." One does not require to be a tremendous Vedic philologist in order to understand the most elementary fact that the problems of those *Ṛiks* on fire were oriented essentially to *Rassenkampf* or race-struggle. The conflicts were both inter-group and intra-group. The fire-sagas were harnessed to colonising and expansion on the one hand and to inter-tribal war and peace on the other. Altogether, we encounter the atmosphere of jealousy and rage, for instance, like that of Viśvāmitra (*Rig Veda* III, 33, 53, 9-11) and the evocation and development of the aggressive personality of the *viṣ* (race, tribe or folk) group.

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An important, perhaps the most important item in the Vedic complex is the *viṣ* itself. It is not enough to know only the chief or the priest, oriented to warfare as each is. We cannot afford to ignore the real centre of political as well as social and economic interest in the Vedic *milieu*, namely, the *viṣ* (people).

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A paramount element in the public life of Vedic India is furnished by the wars of the colonising i.e. Aryan *viṣ*-groups with the Dasyus (original inhabitants). Wars among the colonising i.e. Aryan *viṣ* groups themselves, e.g., the five *kriṣṭayah*, *kṣitayah* or *jātāh*, namely, Yadu, Anu, Druhyu, Turvasa and Puru constitute a second factor of importance. External or foreign politics, to use modern categories, form the foundations of *viṣ* activities. It is the *viṣ* nucleus that is abroad "conquering and to conquer," and it is the "world-conquests" of these *viṣ*-groups that the fire-*riṣis* or sages are promoting in and through their *Ṛiks* (X, 84, 3).⁶

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⁶ See the chapter on "Völker und Stämme" in Zimmer: *Altindisches Leben* (Berlin 1879) pp. 103-104, 118-122, 127-128, 162-163: and A. B. Keith's chapter on "The Age of the *Rig Veda*" in the *Cambridge History of India*, Vol. I. (1922), pp. 81-86.

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Vedic polity cannot be identified with the polity of the chieftain and the priest. It is essentially the polity of the *viṣ*, the demos, the mass. It is the harangues in the "crowd" and addressed to the crowd, no matter whether in the form of hymns, prayers or incantations, that constitute the ideological ecology of the Vedic complex. It is the movements, the mobilizations *en masse*, the *charaiveti*⁷ (move on) of the folk that furnish the *élan vital* of Vedic men and women.

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⁷ *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, VII, 15.

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The *Yajurveda Taittirīya Saṃhitā* (I. viii, 12) is well up in harangues. The following hymn tells its own tale:⁸

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⁸ Keith: *The Veda of Black Yajus School*, Part I. (1919) pp. 123-124.

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"Notified is Agni, lord of the house; notified is Indra, of ancient fame; notified is Puṣan, all-knower, notified are Mitra and Varuṇa, increasing holy order; notified are sky and earth of sure vows; notified is the goddess Aditi, of all forms; notified is he, N.N. descendant of N.N. in this folk, this kingdom, for great lordship, for great overlordship, for great rule over the people.

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"This is your king, O Bhāratas; Soma is the king of us Brāhmaṇas.

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"Thou art the bolt of Indra slaying foes;
with thee may he slay his foe.

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"Ye are overcomers of foes.

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"Protect me in front, protect me at the side, protect me from behind, from the quarters protect me: from all deadly things protect me."

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One of these harangues is worded as follows in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* (VIII, 12-15):⁹ "Do ye proclaim him, O Indra, as overlord and overlordship, as paramount ruler and father of paramount rulers, as self-ruler and self-rule, as sovereign and sovereignty, as king and father of kings, as supreme lord and supreme authority." The manifesto goes on in the same strain. The *viṣ* is being told that "the lordly power has been born, the eater of the folk hath been born, the breaker of citadels hath been born, the slayer of *asuras* hath been born, the guardian of the holy power hath been born, the guardian of law hath been born."

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⁹ Keith: *Rigveda Brāhmaṇas* (Aitareya and Kausitaki), Cambridge, Mass., 1920, pp. 329-330.

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Another harangue may be quoted from the *Atharva Veda* (III, 3), which refers to the restoration of a king who has been deposed.

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"For the waters let king Varuṇa call thee"; says the hymn, "let Soma call thee for the mountains; let Indra call thee for these subjects (*viṣ*); becoming a falcon, fly unto these subjects.

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"Let the falcon lead hither from far the one to be called, living exiled in others' territory; let the two Aśvins make the road for thee easy to go; settle together about this man, Ye his fellows.

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"Let thine opponents call thee; thy friends have chosen thee against them. Indra and Agni, all the gods have maintained for thee security in the people.

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"Whatever fellow disputes thy call and whatever outsider,—making him go away, O Indra, then do thou reinstate this man here."\∗10

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\∗10 10 Whitney and Lanman: *Atharva Veda Samhita* (Cambridge, Mass. 1905), First Half, pp. 87-88.

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Such political harangues, in tune as they are with the democratic atmosphere of the *viṣ*, form a signal feature of Vedic literature.

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