{"id":315,"date":"2013-07-13T01:27:17","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=315"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:27:17","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:27:17","slug":"139-the-early-indian-polity-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/01-bande-mataram-volume-01\/139-the-early-indian-polity-vol-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","title":{"rendered":"-139_The Early Indian Polity.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

\nThe Early Indian Polity<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\n                       
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>T<\/font><\/span>HE<\/font><\/b>
\nprinciple of popular rule is the possession of the reins of government by the
\nmass of the people, but by the possession is not intended necessarily the actual
\nexercise of administration. When the people are able to approve or to disapprove
\nof any action of the Government with the certainty that such approval or
\ndisapproval will be absolutely effective, the spirit of democracy is present
\neven if the body is not evolved. India in her ancient polity possessed this
\nspirit of democracy. Like all Aryan nations she started with the three great
\ndivisions of the body politic, King, Lords and Commons, which have been the
\nsources of the various forms of government evolved by the modern nations. In the
\nperiod of the Mahabharata we find that the King is merely the head of the race,
\npossessed of executive power but with no right to legislate and even in the
\nexercise of his executive functions unable to transgress by a hair’s breadth the
\nlaws which are the sum of the customs of the race. Even within this limited
\nscope he cannot act in any important matter without consulting the chief men of
\nthe race who are usually the elders and warriors; often he is a cipher, a
\ndignified President, an ornamental feature of the polity which is in the hands
\nof the nobles. His position is that of first among equals, not that of an
\nabsolute prince or supreme ruler. We find this conception of kingship continued
\ntill the present day in the Rajput States; at Udaipur, for instance, no
\nalienation of land can take place without the signature of all the nobles;
\nalthough the Maharaja is the head of the State, the sacred descendant of the
\nSun, his power is a delegated authority. The rule of the King is hereditary, but
\nonly so long as he is approved of by the people. A tyrannical king can be
\nresisted, an <\/span>
\nunfit
\nheir can be put aside on the representation of the Commons. <\/span>This
\nidea of kingship is the old Aryan idea, it is limited monarchy and not the type
\nof despotism which is called by the Western<\/font><\/p>\n

\n

                                                                                                               
\n<\/font>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nPage-767<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nwriters
\nOriental, though it existed for centuries in Europe and has never been universal
\nin Asia.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The Council of Chiefs is a feature of Indian polity universal in the time
\nof the Mahabharata. That great poem is full of accounts of the meetings of
\nthese Councils and some of the most memorable striking events of the story are
\nthere transacted. The Udyoga Parva <\/i>especially gives detailed accounts of
\nthe transactions of these Council meetings with the speeches of the princely
\norators. The King sits as President, hears both sides and seems to decide partly
\non his own responsibility, partly according to the general sense of the
\nassembly. The opinion of the Council was not decided by votes, an invention of
\nthe Greeks, but as in the older Aryan systems, was taken individually from each
\nCouncillor. The King was the final arbiter and responsible for the decision,
\nexcept in nations like the Yadavas where he seems to have been little more than
\nan ornamental head of an aristocratic polity.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>Finally, the Commons in the Mahabharata are not represented by any
\nassembly, because the times are evidently a period of war and revolution in
\nwhich the military caste had gained an abnormal preponderance. The opinion of
\nthe people expresses itself in public demonstrations of spontaneous character,
\nbut does not seem to have weighed with the proud and self-confident nobles who
\nruled them. This feature of the Mahabharata is obviously peculiar to the times,
\nfor we find that the Buddhist records preserve to us the true form of ancient
\nIndian polity. The nations among whom Buddha lived were free communities in
\nwhich the people assembled as in Greek and Italian States to decide their own
\naffairs. A still more striking instance of the political existence of the
\nCommons is to be found in the Ramayana. We are told that on the occasion of the
\nassociation of Rama as Yuvaraj in the government, Dasaratha summoned a sort of
\nStates General of the Realm to which delegates of the different provinces and
\nvarious orders, religious, military and popular were summoned in order to give
\ntheir sanction to the act of the King. A speech from the throne is delivered in
\nwhich the King states the reasons for his act, solicits the approval of his
\npeople and in case of their refusal of sanction, asks them to meet the situation<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-768<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

\nby
\na counter proposal of their own. The assembly then meets "separately and
\ntogether", in other words, the various Orders of the Realm consult first
\namong themselves and then together and decide to give their sanction to the
\nKing’s proposal.<\/font><\/p>\n


\n           
\n<\/font>
\n<\/span>The growth of large States in India was fatal to the continuance of the
\ndemocratic element in the constitution. The idea of representation had not yet
\nbeen developed, and without the principle of representation democracy is
\nimpossible in a large State. The Greeks were obliged to part with their
\ncherished liberty as soon as large States began to enter into the Hellenic
\nworld; the Romans were obliged to change their august and cherished institutions
\nfor the most absolute form of monarchy as soon as they had become a great
\nEmpire; and democracy disappeared from the world until the slow development of
\nthe principle of representation enabled the spirit of democracy to find a new
\nbody in which it could be reborn. The contact with Greek and Persian absolutism
\nseems to have developed in India the idea of the divinity of Kinghood which had
\nalways been a part of the Aryan system; but while the Aryan King was divine
\nbecause he was the incarnate life of the race, the new idea saw a divinity in
\nthe person of the King as an individual, \u2014 a conception which favoured the
\ngrowth of absolutism. The monarchy of Chandragupta and Asoka seems to have been
\nof the new type, copied perhaps from the Hellenistic empires, in which the
\nnobles and the commons have disappeared and a single individual rules with
\nabsolute power through the instrumentality of officials. The Hindu King,
\nhowever, never became a despot like the Caesars, he never grasped the power of
\nlegislation but remained the executor of laws over which he had no control nor
\ncould he ignore the opinion of the people. When most absolute, he has existed
\nonly to secure the order and welfare of society, and has never enjoyed immunity
\nfrom resistance or the right to disregard the representations of his subjects.
\nThe pure absolutist type of monarchy entered India with the Mahomedans who had
\ntaken it from Europe and Persia, and it has never been accepted in its purity by
\nthe Hindu temperament.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n\t\tBande Mataram<\/i>, <\/i> <\/font> March 20, 1908<\/font><\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n

\nPage-769<\/font><\/p>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Early Indian Polity                           THE principle of popular rule is the possession of the reins of government by the mass of the people,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-01-bande-mataram-volume-01","wpcat-8-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}