The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c16.s2.t1: a) The Doctrine of Mandala (Sphere of Influence)

The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c16.s2.t1

Language: English

a) The Doctrine of Mandala (Sphere of Influence)

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The conception of "external" *aiśvarya* (sovereignty) was well established in the Hindu philosophy of the state. The Hindu thinkers not only analyzed sovereignty with regard to the constituent elements in a single state. They realized also that sovereignty is not complete unless it is external as well as internal, that is, unless the state can exercise its internal authority unobstructed by, and independently of, other states.

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"Great misery", says Śukra, "comes of dependence on others, there is no greater happiness than that from self-rule". This is one of the maxims of the *Śukra-nîti*³ bearing on the freedom of the *râṣtra*, or the land and the people in a state. Kautilya also in his remarks on "foreign rule" expresses the same idea in a negative manner. Under it, we are told in his *Artha-śâstra*,¹ the country is not treated as one's own land, it is impoverished, its wealth carried off, or it is treated "as a commercial article". The description is suggestive of John Stuart Mill's metaphor of the "cattle farm" applied to the "government of one people by another."

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³ Ch. III, line 646. It is not the object of this section to describe the Hindu laws of peace, war and neutrality, for which see Visvanath's "International Law in Ancient India" on the *Mod. Rev.*, April-November 1918, and Pramatha Nath Banerji's "International Law and Custom in Ancient India" in the *Journal of the Department of Letters*, Vol. I (Calcutta University), 1921.

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¹ Book VIII, ch. II, *Ind. Ant.*, 1910, p. 83. For older uses of the concept of *sva-râj* (self-rule) *vide* the *Atharva-Veda*, XVII, i, 22, 23, also Macdonell and Keith's *Vedic Index*, Vol. II, p. 494; the *Mod. Rev.* March 1919.

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The doctrine of independence (*svârâjya*, *aparâdhînatva*) implied in this conception of external sovereignty was obviously the foundation of the theory of the state in relation with other states. And it gave rise to certain categories of *droit des gens* or *jus gentium* which normally influenced Hindu political thinking from at least the fourth century B. C. These concepts can more or less be grouped under the doctrine of *mandala*, that is, sphere or circle (of influence, interests, ambitions, enterprise, and what not).

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This doctrine of *mandala*, underlying as it does the Hindu idea of the "balance of power," pervades the entire speculation on the subject of international relations. It is hinted at by Śukra² and referred to by Manu.³ Kâmandaka⁴ has devoted a whole chapter to the topic. It has been exhaustively treated by Kautilya.⁵ We are not concerned here with the doctrine as such; we shall only study it in its bearing on the theory of sovereignty.

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² IV, i, lines 39—43.

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³ VII, 154, 156, 207.

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⁴ Ch. VIII.

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⁵ Book VI, ch. II.

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In the first place, the doctrine of *mandala* is essentially the doctrine of *vijigîsu* (aspirant to conquest) or *Siegfried*. It is the cult of expansion. Now, the *Mahâbhârata*⁶ inculcates the ethics of "manliness as the highest thing" and characterizes it as consisting in a ceaseless "upward striving". The same aspiration to "press only up" and "bend not" or "elect glory even at the cost of life" can influence each and all of the states on earth. The doctrine becomes necessarily a spur to the struggle for existence, self-assertion and world domination among the *Siegfrieds*. The conception is thus altogether a dynamic factor calculated to disturb the equilibrium and *status quo* of international politics.

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⁶ Book XII, ch. 56, verse 15; V, 127, 19—20; V, 134, 39; *J. A. O. S.*, 1889, pp. 156, 187—189.

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First, then, in regard to the doctrine of *vijigîsu*. According to Kautilya,¹ it is the ambition of each state to acquire "strength and happiness" for the people. The *élan vital* of a ruler in Kâmandaka's conception² also lies in the "aspiration to conquer". The king, says he, should establish in himself the *nâbhi* (or centre of gravity) of a system. He should become the lord of a *mandala*. It is part of his duty to try to have "a full sphere around him" just as the "moon is encircled by a complete orb". The "full sphere" is, of course, the circle of states related to the Siegfried as allies, enemies and neutrals. Perpetual "preparedness" must therefore be the first postulate of *Realpolitik* in Hindu theory. "One should be ever ready with *danda*" (the "mailed fist"), declares Manu³ naively, "should always have one's might in evidence and policies well-guarded, as well as be ever on the look out for the enemy's holes". Further, one should "bring to subjection all those elements that are obstacles to the career of triumph".⁴

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¹ *Ind. Ant.*, 1909, p. 284.

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² VIII, 1, 3, 6.

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³ VII, 102.

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⁴ Manu, VII, 107.

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The rationale of this preparedness is very simple indeed. It is as elemental as human blood itself. It goes without question in *Śukranîti*⁵ that "all rulers are unfriendly", nay, they are "secret enemies to those who are rising, vigorous, virtuous and powerful". "What wonder in this?" asks Śukra, and his solution is given in another query which carries its own answer: viz., "Are not the rulers all covetous of territory?" Such being the data of international psychology, Kâmandaka⁶ frankly suggests that "in order to do away with one's enemies their kith and kin should be employed" whenever possible. For, is not poison out-done by poison, diamond cut by diamond, and the elephant subdued by the elephant? "Fishes, again, swallow fishes, similarly relatives relatives." The *Râmâyana* is cited in the *Kâmandakî-nîti* for a corresponding precedent in diplomatic tactics. The fact is well known that in order to overthrow Râvana his brother Vibhîsana was exploited by Râma.

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⁵ IV, i, lines 15—17.

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⁶ VIII, 58. f..

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The *vijigîsu*, then, cannot by any means afford to indulge in pious wishes or have faith in the Utopian statecraft of idealistic dreamers. What under these conditions are likely to be the relations between the hypothetical Siegfrieds of the *nîti-śâstras*? These firebrands are normally endowed with a war-mentality and a bellicose attitude. The world in their eyes is a theater of warfare and equipment for warfare, as it has really been since the Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu's *Art of War*; and they proceed on the assumption that nothing can be unfair in war. The student of political science must therefore have to make almost the same remarks about the "aspirants" of Hindu political speculation as those of Grotius in the prolegomena to his epoch-making *Laws of War and Peace* (1625). "I saw prevailing throughout the Christian world", writes the father of international law, in regard to the European international politics of the early seventeenth century, "a license in making war of which even barbarous nations would have been ashamed. Recourse was had to arms for slight reason or no reason, and when arms were taken up, all reverence for divine and human law thrown away, just as if men were henceforth authorized to commit all crimes without restraint".

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The *vijigîṣu* would think like Maude of the British War-office that the "surest means of keeping the peace is war", or like Stockton, the American militarist, that "the army and the navy is not a burden during peace, but if properly maintained is but a paying business proposition". He can also have the idealism of a Hegel in order to support his *sâdhanâ* or *Streben* to win the place in the sun, and if necessary may as well induct the ancient Greek sophists in his service to prove that might is right.

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The theorists who propounded the cult of *vijigîṣu* would have been in good company with the philosophers of ancient Greece. In Aristotle's postulate of "natural" slaves, "natural" masters, "natural" wars, and so forth, the writers of the *nîti-śâstras* could easily find a place for the "natural" aspirations, "natural" allies and "natural" enemies of their doctrine of *mandala*. The *Politica* assumes that the "barbarians", or non-Greeks, were intended by nature to be slaves¹ and ruled by the Greeks. And since slaves are "property" like "other things", warfare with the object of making slaves and thus acquiring wealth is a legitimate and "naturally just" occupation.² This Aristotelian justification of warfare can be easily recognized as forming the theoretical basis and psychological background of all wars from the conquests of Alexander and the Roman Caesars down to the Thirty Years' War.³ Furthermore, the methods and tactics of the Christian *vijigîṣus* who are responsible for the expansion of Europe in Asia, Africa and America, can all be traced to the dicta of the father of political science, though as a rule moralists are apt to associate them with the teachings of Machiavelli's *Prince* (1513).

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¹ Book I, chs. ii, vi.

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² Book I, ch. viii.

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³ Lawrence's *Essays on Modern International Law*, IV. Vide Machiavelli's *Discourses*, Bk. II, xxi, Willoughby, pp. 77—78, Lilly's *First Principles in Politics*, p. 56, Hobhouse's *Metaphysical Theory of the State*, pp. 100—103, Stockton, p. 203.

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The opinions adumbrated in the *nîti-śâstras* are in any case neither exclusively oriental nor exclusively medieval or primitive. Nor need they be dubbed exclusively Machiavellian. For, has not the *Prince* furnished the fundamental logic of statesmen from the Athenian Pericles and Macedonian Philip down to the Metternichs, Bismarcks and Cavours of our own times? "Also it must be recognized", as Figgis, justifying the methodology of Machiavelli, says in his volume on political theory, *From Gerson to Grotius*,¹ "that in a state of things like international politics, where there is no recognized superior, and even International Law is but the voice of public opinion, the condition of affairs is very much more nearly akin to the state of nature as imagined by Hobbes than it is in the relation of individuals". It is on such considerations that, like Machiavellism, the doctrine of *vijigîṣu* maintains its legitimate place in a theory of international relations. It provides an unvarnished statement of the only hypothesis which can satisfactorily explain the innate militarism that the human world inherits from "beasts and birds".

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¹ Page 101.

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Let us now examine the other aspect of the doctrine of *maṇḍala*, that of the struggle for existence and "place in the sun" among the states. To a *vijigîṣu*, as Bhîṣma² declares, "right is that which a strong man understands to be right"; and the international *mores* of the *Mahâbhârata*³ is summed up in the dictum that "victory is the root of right", just as its creed of life for the individual appraises "death as better than lack of fame". How, then, is this quest of fame, victory or world-domination to be regulated by each state in competition with the others? Are there any rules or methods by which the competing states may guide themselves in this conflict of aspirations? These constitute in substance a natural corollary to the doctrine of *vijigîṣu*.

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² *Mahâ.*, Book II, ch. 69, verse 15.

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³ J. A. O. S., 1889, pp. 187–189.

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The "proper study" of the *vijigîṣu*, a Kaiser Wilhelm *in posse*, is, according to the *Manu Samhitâ*,⁴ his own and his enemy's spheres. And how are these spheres located in his imagination? Śukra gives a brief summary of the Siegfried's investigations as to the "balance of forces" or "conjuncture of circumstances" with a view to the "Next War." We are told that the enemies diminish in importance according as they are remote from the "centre of the sphere." First to be dreaded by the *vijigîṣu* are those who are situated around or very near his own state, then those who live farther away,⁵ and so on. With the remoteness of location, enmity, hatred or rivalry naturally declines. Whether a state is to be treated as inimical, indifferent or friendly depends *per se* on its propinquity or distance. The geographical distribution of states influences their psychology in regard to their neighbors as a matter of course in such an order that the positive antipathy of the nearest dwindles into tolerable apathy of the next and gives way to active sympathy and even friendliness of the farthest distant. This, however, is not the only possible grouping of powers in a *vijigîṣu's* estimation. The *Śukra-nîti*¹ gives another order in which the states may be distributed. According to this computation, first are situated the enemies, then come the friends, next the neutrals, and the most remote on all sides are the enemies again.

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⁴ VII, 154.

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⁵ *Śukra-nîti*, IV, i, lines 39–41.

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¹ *Ibid*, IV, i, lines 42—43.

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These are the elementary principles of international dealings of which elaborate accounts are given in the writings of Kautilya and Kâmandaka. The theory holds that there is a hypothetical tug-of-war always being fought between the *vijigîṣu* and his *ari* (the enemy). These two are the combatants or belligerents. Along with these are to be counted another two states in order to furnish a logical completeness to the hypothesis. The *quadrivium*² consists of the following members:

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² *Kâmandakî*, VIII, 20; *Manu*, VII, 156.

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1. The *vijigîṣu*: the aspirant, e. g., an Alexander "mewing his might," bent on "conquering and to conquer;"

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2. The *ari* (the enemy): the one that is situated anywhere immediately on the circumference of the aspirant's territory;³

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³ *Artha*, Book VI, ch. ii, in the *Ind. Ant.* for 1909, p. 283. For a fuller account of the Kautilyan *Maṇḍala* see Law's *Inter-state Relations in Ancient India*. He suggests new terminology for states 3. and 4. in the *quadrivium* (vide, pp. vi, 13). But so far as the problem before the *vijigîṣu* is concerned the new terms do not seem to introduce any new point of view (p. 31).

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3. The *madhyama* (the mediatory): the one (located close to the aspirant and his enemy) capable of helping both the belligerents, whether united or disunited, or of resisting either of them individually;⁴

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⁴ *Ibid.* According to Law, *madhyama* = "medium power" state, cf. *Inter-state etc.*, p. 10.

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4. The *udâsîna* (the indifferent or the neutral): the one (situated beyond 1, 2, and 3) very powerful and capable of helping the aspirant, the enemy and the mediatory, together or individually, or resisting any of them individually.⁵

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⁵ *Ibid.* Law describes *udâsîna* as the "super-power" (*Ibid*, pp. 9—13).

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These four states, then, constitute the smallest unit of international grouping. From the standpoint of the *vijigîṣu* all other states are either his own allies or the allies of his enemy. Such states are held to be eight in number according to the hypothesis. How, now, is the "aspirant" to pick up his own allies from the crowd? He need only study the geographical position of these states with reference to the belligerents, i. e., to himself and to his enemy.

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The *madhyama* (the mediatory) and the *udâsîna* (the neutral) may be neglected by the Siegfried, for the time being, in his calculation of the possible array of forces directly allied or inimical to his career of conquest. The two belligerents, with the eight others (divided in equal proportion as their allies *in potentia*), are then located in the following order of *entente cordiale* by Kâmandaka¹ and Kautilya.²

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¹ VIII, 16, 17.

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² Book VI, ch. ii, *Ind. Ant.*, 1909, p. 284.

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The "aspirant" occupies, of course, the hypothetical centre. Next to his front is the "enemy." Now we have to calculate frontwards and rearwards. Frontwards: next to the "enemy" is situated (1) the aspirant's ally, next to that is (2) the enemy's ally, next (3) the ally of the aspirant's ally, and last (4) the ally of the enemy's ally. Rearwards from the aspirant: First is situated (1) the rearward enemy, next is (2) the rearward ally, then comes (3) the ally of the rearward enemy, and last (4) the ally of the rearward ally.

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There is nothing queer, archaic or unworkable in this conception of international relations. A simple illustration would show how humanly the political theorists of India approached the foreign policy of nations. Thus, for instance, according to the Kautiliyan doctrine of *mandala*, the "natural enemies" of France engaged in studying the *modus operandi* for "the next war" would be Spain, England and Germany, and her "natural allies" Portugal, Scotland, Ireland and Russia. A French *vijigîṣu*, e. g., a Napoleon, embarking on a war with Germany, should begin by taking steps to keep his "rear safe." With this object he should have Spain attacked by Portugal, and manage to play off the anti-English forces in Ireland and Scotland in such a manner that England may be preoccupied at home and unable to attack France in support of Germany. As Germany, on the other hand, is likely to have China as her natural ally (supposing there is no other state between Russia and the Far East), the French *vijigîṣu* should set Russia against China, and so on. It is obvious that the diplomatic feats conceived by the Hindu political philosophers could be verified almost to the letter by numerous instances in European and Asian history, especially in ancient and medieval times when Eur-Asia was divided into numberless nationalities.

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Nay, the principle of Kautilyan *mandala* is in operation even now in the numerous states carved out of the old Germanistic empires (1918). For instance, the manner in which Poland is being bolstered up by France against Germany on the one hand and Soviet Russia on the other is in keeping with the adumbrations of the Old Asian Richelieu. Italy's pro-Hungarian sentiments as against Jugo-Slavia (1921) are also explicable quite easily by the *nîti* theory of political geography.

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Be this as it may, we have to observe that the group of ten states or a *decennium* constitutes one complete *mandala*. The *vijigîṣu* is the centre of gravity of this sphere. Now each state can have the same legitimate aspiration, that is, each can be fired by the same ambition to form and figure out a sphere of its own. The inevitable result is a conflict of interests, a pandemonium of Siegfrieds united in discord. The problem of statesmen in each state is to find out the methods of neutralizing the policies of others by exploiting the enemies of its rivals in its own interests. The doctrine of *mandala* thus makes of *nîti-śâstra* or political science essentially a science of enmity, hatred, espionage and intrigue, and an art of thousand and one methods of preparedness for "the next war."

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We need not go into the details of the *Machtpolitik* conceived in Kautilya's *Artha-śâstra* or in the sections on warfare in the *Śukra-nîti*. But it is already clear that the doctrine of *mandala* has launched us at last into *mâtsya-nyâya*,¹ the logic of the fish, the Hobbesian law of beasts, anarchy. The doctrine assumes and is prepared for a world of eternally warring states. While "internal" sovereignty dawns as the "logic of the fish" sets, "external" sovereignty postulates the existence of the same logic as a fact in international relations. In one instance *danda*² or punishment, that is, "sanction" of the state, is exercised to crush anarchy, but it is apparently in order to maintain a world-wide anarchy that *danda* or *Faust-recht* is employed by one state against another. The theory of the state is thus reared on two diametrically opposite conceptions:

Linked texts (7)

Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit
Mānava Dharmaśāstra — Manu & Bhṛgu, Sanskrit
Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Atharvavedasaṃhitā — Atharvan & Aṅgiras, Sanskrit
ལུགས་ཀྱི་བསྟན་བཅོས — Classical Tibetan
Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa — Vālmīki, Sanskrit
Kāmandakīya Nītisāra — Kāmandaki, Sanskrit