Choosing a King by divine will

Note: this text is extracted from Book X, chapter 65.

On page 155 we read that in a certain city there was an immemorial custom that an auspicious elephant was driven about by the citizens, and any man that he took up with his trunk and placed on his back was anointed king.

At first sight this may seem to be merely an interesting bit of animal folk-lore, showing the great deference paid to the elephant in India. Its prominent place in every aspect of Hindu life would naturally tend to support this view. But here the act of the elephant is simply the remnant of a much older custom mentioned as early as the Jātakas, which, on its entry into the folk-lore of India, preserved only that portion essential for the purposes of the story-teller. I refer to the rite of pañcadivyādhivāsa, or choosing a king by divine will.

The exact meaning of the term has puzzled lexicographers for years. Pañca, of course, means “five” and presents no difficulties. Divya is a neuter noun and in a legal sense means “ordeal,” but in the present connection is used in a concrete instead of an abstract sense. Thus neither Jacobi’s “insignia of royalty,” nor Meyer’s “divine things” exactly expresses the meaning. Edgerton (“Pañcadivyādhivāsa, or Choosing a King...,” Journ. Am. Orient. Soc., vol. xxiii, 1913, p. l66) would translate, “instruments of divine test,” which certainly conveys the meaning better. This view is also taken by Hertel, who, in Das Pañcatantra, seine Geschichte und seine Verbreitung, Leipzig, 191 4, p. 374n^l, says:

“divya hat den Sinn ‘Āusserung des Schicksalswillens,’ entspricht also etwa unserm ‘Gottcsurteil,’ und bedeutet in unserem besonderen Falle ‘dasjenige, was ein solches Gottesurteil kund tut.’ ‘Eingesetzt’ werden die divya, um den neuen König zu bestimmen.”

There still remains adhivāsa to be discussed. In the past many scholars have connected it with vāsa, “perfume,” but recent research has shown it to be derived from the root vas, “to dwell,” with the preposition adhi. The complete term, then, refers to a ceremony by which a deity or divine power is invoked to take its proper place in a sacred object, either in the image of a god or in some other thing (in this case five things) which is to be consecrated to some divine purpose. (See Edgerton, op. cit., p. 164 et seq.)

We have already seen (Vol. I, p. 255n²) that five was regarded as a mystical number, and as such entered largely into Hindu ceremonies and ritual. There were five emblems of royalty, (rāja-) kakudāni: the sword, umbrella, crown, shoes and chowrie. The Burmese regalia consisted of almost exactly the same articles (see Vol. II, p. 264).

It is not surprising, therefore, to find that in the selection of a king by divine will the number of the articles employed is also five. The ceremony being really a coronation, the list of articles varies from that given above. Naturally the chosen man must be anointed, and so a pitcher of holy water takes the place of the sword, while the two royal animals, the elephant and the horse, usually replace the crown and shoes, though sometimes the umbrella.

There are several examples of the divine selection of a king in the Jātakas, although the method adopted is different. After special consecration a “festal car” proceeds riderless wherever the divine will guides it, until it stops before the man whose merit is sufficient for him to rule the kingdom. The musicians who have followed the car now sound a triumphant acclamation, and the chosen ruler is anointed, and made to mount the waiting chariot. Such is the method described in the Mahājanaka Jātaka, No. 539 (Cambridge edition, vol. vi, p. 25), while similar accounts occur in Nos. 378, 445, 461, 465 and 529 (i.e. vol. iii, p. 157; vol. iv, p. 25; ib., p. 80; ib., p. 95; vol. v, p. 128).

The tradition of this ceremony has persisted in many different parts of India to the present day, and was recently found by Sir Aurel Stein in a variant of the Joseph and Potiphar tale as told by a Kashmirian story-teller. In this case it is an elephant and a royal hawk who make the choice. (See Stein and Grierson, Hatim’s Tales, p. 37.)

In many instances only one or two of the emblems of royalty are mentioned. For example in the Kathākoça (Tawney, p. 4 and note) there is an elephant with a pitcher of water fastened to its temple. It roams for seven days before it finds the chosen man, whereupon it empties the pitcher on his head. On p. 128 of the same collection the horse is also mentioned, while on p. 155 we read:

“Now, it happened that the king of that city died in the course of the night without leaving issue. Then the ministers had recourse to the five ordeals. The mighty elephant came into the garden outside the city. There the elephant sprinkled Prince Amaradatta and put him on its back. Then the horse neighed. The two chowries fanned the prince. An umbrella was held over his head. A divine voice was heard in the air: ‘Long live King Amaradatta!’”

In the Prabandhacintāmaṇi (Tawney, p. 181) the elephant roams alone in the whole city and finally sprinkles a humble umbrella-bearer. Sometimes, as in Jacobi’s Hindu Tales, p. 131, only a horse is mentioned, while in another story in the same collection (p. 212) we have all five:

“Having seen him, the elephant trumpeted, the steed neighed, the golden pitcher sprinkled him, the chowries fanned him, and the parasol stood over him.”

It would be superfluous to give other examples from Hindu fiction. They have, moreover, been already enumerated. See Tawney, “Some Indian Methods of Electing Kings,” Proc. Roy. As. Soc. Bengal, Nov. 1891, p. 135 et seq.; Meyer, Daśa Kumāra Charita, 1902, p. 94; Bloomfield, Life and Stories of Pārçvanātha, pp. 199 - 202; ditto, “Joseph and Potiphar in Hindu Fiction,” Trans. Amer. Phil. Ass., vol. liv, 1923, pp. 142, 143; Stein and Grierson, op. cit., p. xxxv. Reference should also be made to W. Crooke, Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, vol. ii, p. 240; ditto, Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, vol. ii, p. 380; and to R. V. Russell, Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces, vol. iv, p. 462, where the founder of the Gahlot clan in Mewār was proclaimed king by an elephant putting a garland thrice round his neck.

The subject has been discussed by Hartland from a much wider point of view, and variants are given from many parts of Europe as well as Asia. He also includes examples showing that in many countries the choice of a king actually depends on omens from animals. Thus it is said that in Senjero, a petty kingdom in the south of Abyssinia, when the king dies, the nobles assemble outside the city in the open plain and wait until a vulture or an insect settles on one of them, who is then saluted as king.

Hartland first read a paper on this subject before the Folk-Lore Society (see “The Voice of the Stone of Destiny,” Folk-Lore, vol. xiv, 1903, pp. 28 - 60). It was later reprinted with a few small additions in his Ritual and Belief, London, 1914, pp. 290-328 (not p. 30 et seq. as stated in Hatim’s Tales, p. xxxv).

In the Nights no animal is mentioned in connection with the custom of choosing a king by divine will, but the underlying idea is the same. In the story of “Ali Shar and Zumurrud” (Burton, vol. iv, p. 210), Zumurrud enters the city disguised as a man and is immediately made king. The act is thus explained:

“... it is the custom of the citizens, when the king deceaseth leaving no son, that the troops should sally forth to the suburbs and sojourn there three days: and whoever cometh from the quarter whence thou hast come, him they make king over them.”

See also Supp., vol. ii, where Clouston gives a useful note when quoting one of J. H. Knowles’ tales from Ind. Ant., June 1886.

For other references see Chauvin, op. cit., vi, p. 75, and Cosquin, Les Contes Indiens et L’Occident, Paris, 1922, p. 321. —n.m.p.