The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c16.s1.t2.1

c16.s1.t2.1

According to the *Mahâbhârata*, *Manu Samhitâ*, *Śukra-nîti* and other texts of Hindu political theory, government is by nature coercive because man is by nature vicious. The state can thus be born only in and through *danda*, i. e. punishment or sanction. It is out of a condition of the "logic of the fish" (*mâtsya-nyâya*) or the Hobbesian and Spinozistic "state of nature", that *danda*³ brings into existence a well regulated civil society called the state. In Aristotelian terminology *danda* would 'se" o 'he state.