A Hindu King

BY P. B. SATHE, B.A., L.L.M., Mimamsa Bhushana

It is many times argued and sometimes taken for granted that a Hindu king was an autocrat, that he had unfettered power to do anything and that he was responsible to none but to himself. The theme of this short essay is to show that this proposition is not correct. A Hindu king as described in the old literature of the Hindus was not an autocrat. The autocracy of the king is a subsequent development of the polity of the Hindus which slowly encouraged extensive powers of the king in the later stages of the history of Hindusthan. Before however we proceed to the subject proper, it would not be out of place here to consider the origin of the Hindu kingship. The concept of Danda is one of the fundamental ideas in the Hindu political theory. The problem of the origin of kingship can be considered from two points of view; one the realistic and the other rationalistic. The first looks at the question from the point of view of how kingship originally came into existence. It is mainly concerned with the facts of history. The second views it from the moral or ethical point of view. The theory of political science tells us that power and the prowess of the king and its growth is always mainly due to external pressure. When there is a danger to one State from the neighbouring States, the State in question tries to be as strong as possible and wants to have certain discipline which would help it to remain free from foreign aggression. This discipline is maintained by a strong and powerful hand, whether it be that of a king or a dictator. In the Aitareya Brahmana it has been stated that the Devas being pressed by the unrighteousness of the Asuras proceeded to elect one of themselves as a king. (Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, Volume II, pages 4 and 5). It is thus clear from this passage that the Vedic kings were of human origin. They cannot be otherwise when they were selected. In the Satapatha Brahmana, this problem is however looked at from the rationalistic point of view (Satapatha Brahmana, volume I, p. 514). In the Sutra period the question of the origin of kingship is not given much importance. According to the Sutrakaras the social structure of the Hindu society which recognized the varnashrama was eternal, and it was Dharma which guided all actions of all beings on the face of the earth. According to them, the law was expounded by the Brahmins and the kings simply enforced the decrees of the Rishis. The king according to these philosophers was not above the law but had to obey certain rules. The sanction behind these rules was of moral discipline and of penalty after death (Vasishta Volume I, 39 to 41).

Kautilya does not also care to give us any idea of the origin of kingship (Sen's Hindu Political Thought, page 53). It appears from what he has stated that he tries to reconcile both the views of the origin of kingship i.e., that of the human origin and of the divine origin. (So also Santiparva, page 58, Shlokas 41 to 48). The king is created for the protection of the world from out of the body of five deities. Leaving aside the metaphors, it can be said that the king was a symbol of five attributes of the five deities, which rule the universe. The main theme therefore appears to be that the king was invested with these powers for the protection of the world. This does not however go to show that the king had an unfettered power. For according to Manu, the Danda which was above the king would surely destroy the autocratic and oppressive king (VII, p. 27). The king was to follow the rules of Danda Niti. He could not thus be above Law.

In the Mahabharata the origin of kingship appears to be divine (santiparva, Section 59). According to the Mahabharata, God Vishnu entered the body of Prithu and hence Prithu, the ruler of the earth, became representative of God. The king was to be obeyed because he was really a portion of Vishnu on earth. Underlying all these ideas, therefore, the predominant idea appears to be that this divinity was attached not to the person of the king but to his office. The Mahabharata expressly shows that an unrighteous king could be slain by his subjects (Santiparva, Section 58, Shloka 41). The kingship, according to the Mahabharata and according to the ancient scriptures, was not a right but a duty. The aspect of duty is very prominent in Hindu jurisprudence and in Hindu polity. The king was to observe the rules of Raja Dharma. It was only Narada who says that the king had an unfettered power over all things under him and that he was responsible to none (Narada, XVIII, p.22). With this solitary exception, Hindu philosophers did not advocate the divine right to rule. In the Mahabharata, the subjects are even conceded the right of tyrannicide. According to Hindu Sastras, the king is to be consecrated. He does not become a king till the religious ceremony of coronation is performed i,e., the God Vishnu enters his body, not when the person of the king is born, but only when he is accepted by the people as their sovereign. The king takes the coronation oath first, and then he becomes the king. The coronation oath is a sort of consideration for the kingship which the person of the king gets from his subjects. Whenever the king breaks the promises made at the time of the coronation, his right to be obeyed can be questioned by the subjects. The Hindu political philosophy, as all Hindu scriptures are, is more concerned with the religious aspect of life and it is no wonder therefore that the Hindu political philosophy accepts the principle of the divinity of the king. In the Shukraniti, however, a very advanced view has been propounded and the king is said to be a servant of the people. (Sen's Hindu Political Thought, page 61). We can thus in short say that though the Hindu Polity attached a sort of divinity to the king's person, they never recognized the divine right of the king to rule. The sum and substance of the political thought of the Hindus therefore appears to be that the king is bound by his coronation oath and that he was responsible to the people so far as those oaths were concerned.

We shall now turn our attention to the checks against tyranny of a Hindu king. These checks can be, divided under two heads. The first head would be of preventive checks and the second would be of retributive checks. The preventive checks were those which the king himself adopted for his guidance because of his training in his youth. During the period of his studentship, the king was to follow certain rules of conduct and those rules of conduct used to be ingrained in the habits of the king, when he assumed office. His conduct was governed by moral precepts and his moral discipline was one of the most effective checks in those days when religion was the sole criterion of human conduct. This moral discipline came from within, and was thus a most effective check on the king's conduct towards his subjects. The king was to regard his office as a sacred trust and the king, who carried on his administration from this moral point of view, was called Rajarshi.

The second preventive check was that of the religious belief of the king. To bad kings punishments were prescribed after death. Such a religious check today would appear ridiculous, but to the minds of Hindu kings in the pre-historic period, it was a great force which kept them within bounds. According to Manu, a king who cares for his subjects gets l/6th of their merits, while if he does not, he gets l/6th of their demerits (Manu, VIII, 304.) Kautilya, who is more or less a secular philosopher, is not also free from this religious bias because according to him also a king, who rules righteously, goes to heaven (Arthashastra III, 7).

The political preventive checks are the laws, customs, forces of public opinion and the opinions of the ministers and the assemblies. The king was to look to the customs of the people, and the customs had great force as law just as they have got today. According to Shukraniti, the king was to observe Nyaya in the noon and Smriti in the morning. The king was to legislate within certain bounds, but the law was mostly interpreted by the learned Brahmins who had absolutely no interest in their personal worldly well-being. The force of public opinion was recognized by Shukra when he states that the officer who was impeached by 100 men could be dismissed (Shukr, I. p. 763). It would appear from this passage that the Hindus had an idea of what is called ministerial responsibility in these days.

The real and the most effective check was that of the advice of the ministers and the assemblies. According to Kautilya, a single wheel could not move, and therefore the king was to employ ministers and hear their opinions (Arthashastra I, p. 7). The king was to be enthroned in the presence of the ministers, and their presence meant their consent to the king's assuming office. The king was enthroned not only in the presence of the ministers but also in the presence of all the people. Thus the consent of the people to his assumption of office was solicited by the king. These ministers, therefore, who could raise a prince to the throne, could under certain circumstances revolt against him. As a matter of fact an instance of how the queen of Ceylon was dethroned by her ministers is cited by Sen in his Hindu Political Thought on page 77.

We shall now turn to the retributive checks. In the Vedic period, we find that the ministers had power to depose a king (Sen's Hindu Jurisprudence, page 778). The second retributive check was a prayopaveshana, a form of passive resistance. The subjects, who had certain grievances, fasted before the king's palace till the grievances were redressed. There was a danger of this remedy being used for all purposes. Prayopaveshana is Satyagraha but it can amount to Duragraha also. In any case, the king had to look to the grievances of these people who followed the form of this sort of passive resistance. This prayopaveshana was a form of direct appeal to the judicial conscience of the king, and to the pity of the people. The idea of deposition is not repugnant to the Hindu mind. According to Kautilya, an unrighteous king would fall a prey to his discontented subjects (Arthashastra, VI, p. 1). According to Santiparva, a king, who is carried away by the advice of vicious ministers or who is unrighteous, deserves to be slain (Santiparva, Section 22). This was the greatest punishment that the dissatisfied subjects could inflict upon an unrighteous king. The right to revolt against the king, though under very exceptional circumstances, was a great and most effective political check on the tyranny of any king. The distinction between a good king and a tyrant has been maintained by Shukra also. Shukra has quoted the historical instance of King Vena being killed by his subjects for his unrighteousness. Shukra does not encourage tyrannicide–and rightly so–but he is emphatic enough to recognize the right of the people to this extreme action. Shukra is very clear in calling the king a servant of the people.

We thus see that a Hindu king, who was born and brought up under very rigorous discipline during his student life and who was susceptible to religious influences, could not be an unrighteous king. All his training during his studentship, which formed part and parcel of his character, tended towards his being a king who cared for his subjects. A king who followed the principles of Rajdharma during his Brahmacharya period, could not be an unrighteous king. Secondly the council of his wise ministers, expounding of the laws by the most disinterested Rishis, and the ultimate danger of being dethroned by his own subjects, all tended to make a Hindu king a very great constitutional king indeed, that is to say, he accepted the principles of Rajdharma. He felt that his office was merely a duty imposed upon him by God and that he was responsible to God for his actions. Thus there is no wonder that the old Hindu idea of kingship was one of the loftiest ideas of Hindu political thought and jurisprudence. The trend of Hindu jurisprudence is towards the observance of duties and not towards the exercise of rights. The subjects therefore did not care to know their rights as they cared to understand their duties. So also, the king did not care to know how kingship came into being but he was more conscious of his duty as a king. He was to follow the principles of Raja-Dharma and aimed at being called Rajarshi. The Hindu king, therefore, was not, and could not be an autocrat but was merely an officer whose principal duty was to look to the welfare of his subjects.