The Idea of Ancient India, page 44
As important as the text’s dārśanic underpinnings for understanding the emphasis on royal self-control was its politico-historical context. In an age of political aggrandisement, political theorists must have not only been concerned with the question of how the power of the king could be increased but also with how it could be contained. Emphasising the importance of mantraśakti (the power of counsel) could only go so far. Ultimately, in ancient monarchical states, the only agent of effective control on the ambitions and transgressions of the king was the king himself. This may have been the second important element explaining Kāmandaka’s (and Kauṭilya’s) emphasis on the king controlling himself and his passions. The contradiction that the Nītisāra offers—what may in fact be described as an important element in the classical Indian ideal of kingship—is that of a king who aspires to become a world conqueror but who is not moved by the lust for power, or for anything else, for that matter. Renunciation was built into the ideal prototype of the king, and this is reflected in the ideal of the rajarṣi, an ideal which is pervasive in the cultural traditions of ancient and early medieval India.62
Historicising the Nītisāra
Historicising the Nītisāra involves contextualising it within the genre of ancient and early medieval Indian political treatises and within the realities of monarchical power politics at the advent of the early medieval. The perspective represented in this text is that of a Brāhmaṇa political theorist who was probably closely involved in contemporary politics, addressing members of the political class, including the king. While the text is broadly speaking ‘normative’ in nature, within this normative discourse, we can view a morphology of monarchical power politics and we can also see the author grappling with pressing issues of his time, including those related to unbridled and unsatiated royal ambitions and endemic war and violence.
The leading political theorists of ancient and early medieval India had a similar socio-political background and shared similar concerns and conceptual vocabulary, ones which extended beyond their circle to other members of the intelligentsia, including the poets. They participated in the creation of a basic common stock of ideas and metaphors that became part of a relatively stable classical Indian model of kingship which, with regional and chronological variations, spread beyond the confines of the subcontinent into Southeast Asia as well.63
Yet, within the parameters of this model, these thinkers had their distinct and distinctive positions and points of view as well. In fact, a close reading of the Nītisāra reveals that the usual description of this text as an unoriginal versified summary of the teaching of the Arthaśāstra is incorrect. Kāmandaka certainly drew on Kauṭilya’s ideas (and those of others as well), but he had his own point of view on several matters. His concerns and opinions can be gauged through a careful analysis of the issues he discusses, his arguments and emphases. Just as interesting as his assertions are his silences. There is only a hint of cleavages within the political elite, and it may be noted that apart from a brief reference to the crime of usurpation, Kāmandaka does not directly discuss issues which must have been of pressing practical import such as disputed succession, coups and dynastic changes.
The morphology of the state, royal court and household in the Nītisāra corresponds broadly to that of the Arthaśāstra. And yet, in spite of shared rhetoric and imagery, Kāmandaka lacks Kauṭilya’s confident, even audacious, vision of political power and empire. This must have been at least in part due to the fact that the core of the Arthaśāstra, was composed at least half a millennium, if not more, earlier, during a period of aggressive empire-building, while the Nītisāra was composed in a very different political scenario, against the backdrop of imperial decline (of the Guptas and Vākāṭakas). The political battles were now among monarchical states and the oligarchies no longer figured as contenders among the circle of kings. Compared with still later texts, although the ideal of political paramountcy is very important, in the Nītisāra, the sāmantas still seem to be bordering chiefs, and the discussion of the protocol between paramount and subordinate rulers is not as detailed or elaborate.
The Nītisāra’s ostensible aim was to reveal how the vijigīṣu could achieve his goal of political paramountcy and the text often has the ring of idealisation and universalisation, especially when it talks of the ideal virtues of the king. But there seems to be something more than banal idealisation or pious platitude here. Although many of the virtues that are described as desirable in a king are presented as inborn, they are actually cultivable, and the idea that is implicit is that there is a difference between a king who becomes king and one who is worthy of being one. The entire discussion can be seen as an attempt of a political theorist to emphasise the ethical dimension of political discourse.64
A similar concern for building bridges between ethics and political realities can be seen in Kāmandaka’s discussion of various forms of violence associated with kingship—punishment, hunting and war. While he does justify violent means in order to justify certain ends (justice, the desire for exciting sport, and the goal of territorial expansion respectively), a careful reading of the text suggests a more complex and nuanced perspective. Along with advice, there is a great deal of admonition and warning of the calamities that will afflict the kingdom if a king lacks the necessary virtues or abilities, or if the balance of virtue that is necessary for the other human agents in the saptāṅga rājya is disturbed.
The long deliberative sections on war, advocating extreme caution, suggest the despondency of a political thinker who disapproved of the frequent destructive warfare that marked his time. That this disapproval was part of Kāmandaka’s larger convictions related to violence and non-violence is evident from his view on capital punishment. It is also evident in his diatribe against the royal hunt, which, contrary to Kauṭilya’s view on the matter, is viewed as the worst of the royal vices, and is disapproved of not only on the grounds of expediency but also on the grounds that it involves moral weakening of the king and death to the hunted animals. These radical points of view have, strangely enough, hitherto gone unnoticed in works on ancient Indian political thought, which have incorrectly presented the Nītisāra as a feeble versified echo of the Arthaśāstra.
Further, embedded in a text which seems to be a celebration of royal and political ambitions, is a strong insistence that the king exercise control over his senses. This insistence may have been a reaction to the disastrous results of the wanton, licentious lifestyle of many contemporary kings and/or as a reflection of the most basic form of self-control that was advocated by many dārṣanic schools of the time. The Upaniṣadic ring of Nītisāra 4.78, mentioned earlier in this essay, seems to betray a more specific philosophical orientation. But apart from the philosophical inspiration, the emphasis on self-control can also be seen as an attempt of the political theorists to deal with a very central problem: How was the power of the king to be controlled and checked in a polity which lacked any institutional checks? Virtue, caution and power of counsel were emphasised again and again. But theorists such as Kāmandaka recognised that ultimately, no external controls could be counted on, and the only real control on the king’s power was the one that he had to be persuaded to exercise over himself.
Incorporating Perspectives on Violence into Political History
In spite of problems in dating their work precisely, it is essential to incorporate the ideas of the political theorists into historical writings on political processes in ancient and early medieval India. Such an exercise involves situating these texts within their historical context, a careful reading of their opinions and arguments on various issues, and a comparison between texts (and inscriptions) belonging to different periods of time. Comparison reveals much continuity in terms of concepts and vocabulary, but also indicates differences in perspective, and shifts in emphasis and nuance. We have seen that a comparison of the Arthaśāstra and Nītisāra reflects a refashioning of the political model. While the Arthaśāstra can be seen as a brilliant exposition of the dizzy heights of power to which a king could aspire, inspired by the vision of an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent state, the Nītisāra’s tone is more cautious and restrained. Kāmandaka is certainly concerned with how a king could increase his power and dominion, but he is equally, if not more, concerned with how royal power, war and violence could be contained and controlled. The Arthaśāstra reflects an earlier model of an arrogant, absolutist state; the Nītisāra represents a later, less exultant reflection on political power, one in which non-violence has significantly tempered the discussion of violence, especially with regard to punishment, the royal hunt and war.
In the contexts of perspectives on war and hunting in ancient and early medieval times, it does not help to necessarily look for evidence of wholesale approval or disapproval of these activities.65 In fact, the assertion that the issue of ahiṁsā was never raised in connection with the king’s exercising his own functions in ancient India is inaccurate.66 These were not questions which involved an either/or choice between the extremes of violence and non-violence (both in general or in their specific manifestations). There was a constant tension between these two poles, and a number of possibilities between them, and the implications of these possibilities were explored in various ways. It is this range of attitudes related to hiṁsā and ahiṁsā that require careful and extensive investigation.67
Apart from the Arthaśāstra and Nītisāra, there are several other less-known texts on polity, most of them known through fleeting references in secondary literature.68 We have seen how the subject of nīti emerged from within the larger of discipline of Arthaśāstra. But issues related to rulership and polity were simultaneously being also taken over and discussed in other kinds of works, principally the Dharmaśāstra texts and the epics, and they were also explored and expressed in poetry, drama, didactic tales and sayings, not only in Sanskrit but in other languages as well.
The question of how political violence was conceptualised, defined, justified, delimited, criticised or condemned in texts belonging to different genres, languages and periods needs to be analysed, and the results of such an analysis should be part of the historian’s discourse on political processes in ancient and early medieval India. The sheer pervasiveness of political violence in human history, and the problem it presents in our own time, make an engagement with this issue especially pertinent.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous referee for many extremely valuable suggestions which have been incorporated into the final version of this chapter. I would also like to thank Vijay Tankha, Dilip Simeon, Nayanjot Lahiri, Suryanarayana Nanda, and Seema Alavi for various kinds of help rendered.
Notes
1. The literature on these frameworks is well known and enormous, and it is therefore neither possible nor necessary to give exhaustive references. A good sample of the various views is on display in Hermann Kulke, ed., The State in India 1000–1700, Oxford in India Readings, Themes in Indian History Series (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
2. Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture and Power in Premodern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
3. Ronald Inden, Text and Practice: Essays on South Asian History (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 129–178.
4. Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India (New Delhi: Foundation Books, 2006).
5. See for instance, Jan E. M. Houben and Karel R. van Kooij, eds., Violence Denied: Violence, Non-Violence and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural History (Leiden: Brill, 1999).
6. Daud Ali, ‘Violence, Gastronomy and the Meanings of War in Medieval South India’, The Medieval History Journal 3 (2), 2000, pp. 261–289.
7. Sheldon Pollock, ‘The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (3), Indological Studies Dedicated to Daniel H. H. Ingalls 1985, pp. 499–519. He adds that this stance is diametrically opposite to that found in the West, and that adherence to this postulate had profound implications for the production of knowledge in Indian civilisation.
8. The author’s name has been read as Kāmandaki by some scholars. The text used for this chapter is Sisir Kumar Mitra’s revised edition and translation, which is based on Rajendralala Mitra, ed., The Nītisāra, or The Elements of Polity by Kāmandaki, Revised with English Translation by Sisir Kumar Mitra (Kolkata, 1982), which was published between 1849 and 1884. This uses an anonymous commentary called the Upādhyāyanirapekṣā. Although I have drawn on this edition, I have relied on my own translation of the text. In references hereafter, Nītisāra has been abbreviated to NS. The textual citations refer to the sarga and verse number.
9. Bhasker Anand Saletore, Ancient Indian Political Thought and Institutions (New York, 1963), p. 9.
10. Michael Willis, The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual: Temples and the Establishment of the Gods (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 62–63. Willis’ hypothesis that the ‘Deva’ mentioned in the first verse of the Nītisāra is none other than Candragupta II, on the grounds that the latter is referred to as ‘Deva’ or ‘Devagupta’ in inscriptions, seems weak. So, does his assertion that since Kāmandaka describes himself as a disciple of Viṣṇugupta, alias Kauṭilya, a generation, or 30–40 years, must separate the two political theorists.
11. The date of the Arthaśāstra is an issue of continuing debate. Many Indian historians accept R. P. Kangle’s argument that the core of the text was composed in the early Maurya period during the last quarter of the 4th century bce (R. P. Kangle, The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, Part III [Mumbai: University of Bombay, 1965], pp. 59–115); of course additions, interpolations and recasting may have extended into the early centuries ce. Western scholars, on the other hand, are persuaded by the results of Thomas R. Trautmann’s statistical analysis of word frequencies in the Arthaśāstra (R. Thomas Trautmann, Kauṭilya and the Arthaśāstra: A Statistical Investigation of the Authorship and Evolution of the Text [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971], on the basis of which he has made a case for several different authors. He suggests that Book 2 (which deals with internal administration) may have been completed by c. 150 ce, and the final compilation of the entire text by c. 250 ce. References to the Arthaśāstra (abbreviated to AS) in this essay are to Kangle’s critical edition (R. P. Kangle, The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, Part I: A Critical Edition with a Glossary [Mumbai: University of Bombay], 1970). Patrick Olivelle (King, Governance and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya’s Arthasastra: A New Annotated Translation, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2013, Introduction) dates the composition of the text between c. 50 and 300 CE.
12. U. N. Ghoshal, A History of Indian Political Ideas: The Ancient Period and the Period of Transition to the Middle Ages, Reprint edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1959], 1966), p. 395, n. 1.
13. See, for instance, Saletore, Ancient India Political Thought and Institutions, pp. 54, 289, 340; Ghoshal, A History of Indian Political Ideas, p. 383; K.V.R. Aiyangar, Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity, 2nd edition, (Patna: Eastern Book House, [1935] 1988), pp. 24–25.
14. While the term anujīvin literally carries the connotations of dependence and has, therefore, been often translated as ‘dependant’, in the context of the court, it is better to translate it as ‘courtier’.
15. Apart from the Nītisāra, this also applies, for instance, to the Arthaśāstra and the Kāmasūtra. For a detailed discussion of this point, see Pollock, ‘The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History’, pp. 512–513.
16. Ali (Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India, p. 276) argument that the Arthaśāstra marks a significant shift in the language of lordship, from agonistic to irenic kingship is thought-provoking. However, the shift does not seem to have been a complete one.
17. NS 11.32a refers to a laukika gāthā, according to which, a living man is likely to secure happiness even after the lapse of a hundred years (this refers to the cyclical nature of fortune/happiness and misfortune/sorrow). NS 14.33 refers to a popular saying (sārvalaukika pravāda) that the treasury (kośa) is the root (mūla) of the king.
18. While some of the schools and thinkers cited were clearly historical, the god Indra and the demon Maya fall within the category of fictive authorities.
19. NS 2.6 and NS 11.42.
20. According to some scholars, the reference is to the god Viṣṇu, but the verse seems to refer to a generic king.
21. The word ‘nīti’ comes from the root ‘nī’, which means to take away, guide, conduct, lead, and so on. In its broadest sense, it can refer to policy, rules, or precepts governing any aspect of life. But in the context of the text and branch of knowledge being discussed here, nīti has a more specific sense related to polity, statecraft and governance.
22. Vishwanath Prasad Varma, Studies in Hindu Political Thought and its Metaphysical Foundations, 3rd revised and enlarged edition (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1974), pp. 215–217. He argues that the metaphysics of karma and dharma ruled out the raising of problems such as the individual versus the state, politics versus ethics, and the political accountability of the king to the people.
