Cultural Study of Nisitha Curni

SR No.: 001743
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Madhu Sen
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar
Publication Year: 1975
Total Pages: 432
Language: English, Prakrit
Classification: Book_English, Agam, Canon, & Literature
File Size: 23 MB

Page 45

POLITY AND ADMINISTRATION
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to keep the policy of avoiding severe punishment (atiuggadanla), since severe punishment like death or confiscation of property etc. could intimidate the people to leave the country.' Misappropriation of the sources of income (attha-dūsaņa) resulted in empty treasury.? The term is explained by Somadeva as spending money beyond the income of the State or giving money to a person unworthy of the same.: King with an empty treasury (kosavihūno rāya) was bound to ruin himself*, since it was the treasury and not the person of the king which was the real sovereign.Somadeva in the 10th century, while giving a detailed explanation of these vices (vyasanaj, emphatically asserts--"A single vyasana is enough to destroy a powerful king who may be possessing four kinds of armies, needless to say if all of them are combined." Unlike the Brāhmaṇical law-givers who exempt even a wicked king and a Brāhmana from censure and punishment, as these two sustain the visible world, our Jaina author asserts that a king addicted to any of the seven vices or unversed in the science of state-craft (rajjanitiajanaga) should be discarded by his ministers and replaced by an able king. Several instances are to be noted in the Jaina texts when the subjects revolted against a tyrant or vicious king, dethroned and banished him, and appointed his son as the king. In the NC. instances of threat to the life of the king (or virtual killing) by the monks can be observed
1. 34fdstadt az At, 974 TL 4T ES --NC. 3, p. 507. 2. 3rycaf tre catà CHTH 397459 Tit u hafa-Ibid. 3. 37f7T1571257137TFT -Nitivā., p. 178. 4. 3ctura italario tra laureat-NC. 3, p. 507. 5. Nitivā., p. 178. 6. Ibid., pp. 177, 179. 7. Nāradasmrti, XVIII. 31 8. at Taft Ta Ta Huft aufust-NC, 3, p. 507. 9. The Āvašyaka Cūrni states that king Jiyasattu of Vasantapura was
dethroned and banished by his ministers for his neglect of the stateaffairs because of his excessive love for the queen Sukumāliyā, and his son was appointed as the king at his place.-Āva. Cu., p. 534; also Paumacariya, 22. 75; Saccamkira Jataka (1, No. 73), p. 362.