The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c15.28

c15.28

We shall now proceed to single out a few of the more important tenets in the *nîti-śâstras*, without attempting, however, to be either comprehensive in treatment or exhaustive in reference. The object is only to throw light on the trend of political thinking among Hindus in the perspective of Eur-American speculation. The “personal equation” of the theorists as well as the differences in the *milieu* will be ignored in the present discussion. It is evident that no “historian” of political theory should be excused who passes without comment from the *Sabhâ-parva* to the *Śânti-parva* of the *Mahâbhârata* and from either to the *Śukra-nîti* or from *Kautilya* to *Manu* as if he were moving in the same world and speaking of the same age. But for some time yet indology will have to content itself more with the psychological analysis of the categories and concepts of political science than with the historical presentation of the growth of doctrines such as one finds in Atger’s *Histoire des doctrines du contrat social*. The following sections are being offered, therefore, subject to the fundamental fallacy implied in this “limiting condition” of archeological data.