Jain Journal 1974 01

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 22

106
JAIN JOURNAL
numbers, that it was another term for sangha, that the counting of votes pok place in a Gana State, that it had its own mukhyas or chieftains, a court, an assembly-whip, and even a Parliament.42 We may merely observe that this fine edifice of suppositions does not rest on historical facts.
Likewise an equally unconvincing explanation was given by that versatile scholar of the word arājatā or arājaka which in the Vedic and post-Vedic literature meant a state of anarchy.43 Dr. Jayaswal construed arājaka in the sense of a “non-ruler" constitution, a sort of an idealistic form of government in which Law was the ruler, there being no man-ruler. The basis of the State was the mutual agreement or social contract of the citizens.44 The least one could say about this fantastic interpretation is that, if the arājatā or arājaka State was really of the idyllic type described by the learned historian, one cannot understand why the Jaina Sūtras should have included it in the list of States which were forbidden to the Jaina monks.
The Yuvarāja State mentioned in the same list evidently referred to a State which was ruled over by two (rival) crown princes at one and the same time. But what one fails to understand is why the Yuvarāja States continued to remain in the yuvarāja stage without the yuvarājas not attaining the full status of two rājās. In the context of the Jaina work, we may presume that a yuvarājya was declared dangerous for a Jaina monk because it was obviously ruled, as stated above, by two rival yuvarājas who must have been led by their respective leaders and politicians, thereby drawing the land in a perpetual era of misrule.45
About the Do räjjāņi, Verājjāņi, and Viruddharājjāni, too, there is no agreement among scholars as to their exact meaning. Dr. Jayaswal has nothing special to say about the Do rājjāņi excepting that it was a constitutional kingdom; while about the Veräijāņi, he says that it was a
42 Jayaswal, K. P., Hindu Political Theory, pp. 22, 23, 101-103, etc. (Bangalore,
1955). 43 Taittariya Brahmana, 1, 5.9.1 ; Aitareya Brahmana, 1, 14. 6. See also Vedic Index,
II, p. 215; Aiyangar, Rangaswami, Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity, pp.
82,84 (Madras, 1935). 44 Jayaswal, ibid., p. 84. 45 Dr. Jayaswal's statement that the Yuvaraja State referred "to a government like
the one over which Kharavela presided before his coronation" and that it refers to an inter-regnum (Jayaswal, op. cit., p. 84) merely escapes the issue. If it was merely a question of an inter-regnum did it necessarily mean a period of anarchy ? Why should it have been classed by Jainas along with the other kinds of States of the Arajata type ?