Political History of Northern India

SR No.: 001744
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Gulabchandra Chaudhary
Publisher: Sohanlal Jain Dharm Pracharak Samiti Amrutsar
Publication Year: 1954
Total Pages: 482
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, History, & Culture
File Size: 10 MB

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POLITICAL HISTORY OF N. INDIA FROM JAIN SOURCES
Personal safety of the King :
We have seen what an important place was occupied by the king in the body politic of the state; therefore his safety, corporal as well as mental, was the chief duty of the state. Somadeva says that the safety of the monarch is the safety of the state; therefore, the king should employ as his personal attendants those persons whose fathers and grandfathers had been royal servants, those who bear close relationship to the king, those who are well trained and loyal and those who have rendered good services to the king. Foreigners who have not been honoured and the natives who have been once punished and re-employed should not be appointed to protect the king for their mind might change at times; even a mother is seen behaving like a räksasi.1 The king should be protected first from women, then from claimants (dāyādas) and then the sons (princes).2 Somadeva, in the chapter of the Rājarakşasamuddeśa deals with dangers coming from the above three. He depicts woman as the source of evil and as a bundle of craft and hypocrisy. Duties of the King :
The monarchs of our period were not autocrats. They were fully conscious of their responsibilities and duties to the state and their subjects. The realization of trivargå was an ideal of a state and to attain this they persevered the ideal before themselves. The king was advised to follow Dharma, Artha and Kama in their moderate limitation without injuring the interests of each other.4
The first duty of the king was religious. Most of the kings of our period were followers of one or another religion of the time. They spent a large sum of money in the erection of temples out of devotion. But the most striking feature of our period is that they were never hostile to religions other than their own. They were indeed tolerant in their religious policies.
Somadeva gives a full exposition of the religious duties of a king without deviating from the Brahmanical point of view. He says that the king
1 Nitivā., pp. 220, 221: Ta fala eta Hafa 313: Fax: 4722 FER TIET रक्षयितव्यः। अत एवोक्तं नयविद्भिः पितृपैतामहं महासंबंधानुबद्धं शिक्षितमनुरक्तं कृतकर्मणां च जनं आसन्नं कुर्वीत। चित्तविकृते स्त्यविषयः। किं न भवति मात्रापि राक्षसी।
2 Ibid., p. 222: dagtaat: fata 31479T ETTET 391430AS gra Ty स्त्रीभ्यो रक्षणं ततो दायादेभ्यस्ततः पुत्रेभ्यः।
3 Nitivā., p.7: 3727 yafeffT417 575714 4:1 * Ibid., p. 33: Å ar an naai