The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c15.62

c15.62

In all *nîti-śâstras*, as in the writings of Alcuin and Jonas, the *rationale* of kingship is the promotion of *dharma* or justice. This dispensing of justice is to be administered by the king not only between subjects and subjects but also between himself and the subjects. He is to appoint spies as much to get secret information about the people's activities as also against his own conduct. He is to find out in what light his policies are being taken by the *prakriti*. And if the unpleasant truth comes out, viz., if his intelligence department tells him "People dispraise you, O King", it would be "un-kingly" or "un-philosophic" as Plato would have remarked, to get angry and punish the persons who condemn him.⁵ Rather, he should follow the ideal of the *Râmâyaṇa* and the spirit of Kâlidâsa's *Raghu-vaṁśa*, or that of the French epic of the twelfth century, *Le Couronnement de Louis*,⁶ which taught in quite the *nîti* style of the Hindus that the purpose of God in making the king is not to enable him to satisfy his appetite but that he should tread down all wrongs under his feet.