The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c14.s2.31

c14.s2.31

A *vidyâ* or science that seeks to impart knowledge calculated to foster the "preservation of human society" and provide the man-in-the-street with skill and intelligence becomes necessarily comprehensive and all-embracing in its topics. *Nîti-śâstra* in the hands of Śukra assumes thereby the proportions not of ethics or politics in the circumscribed sense, but of sociology in the wide sense of Aristotle's "architectonic" or dominant science. The extensive range of the subject matter of the *śâstras* on *danda-nîti* is adumbrated in the *Mahâbhârata*¹ and the *Daśa-kumâra-charita*² also, and may on the whole be easily comprehended by students familiar with the multiplicity of topics in Montesquieu.