Jaina Political Thought

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: Prakrit Bharti Academy

Page 78

Ksattriya to fight heroically overrode the mere acquiring of gains. Yudhisthira is the royal hero, the representative of the sovereignty of virtue, Dharma-raja. Krsna, the royal philosopher, explains virtue as skill in action, something which lies beyond the Vedas. This philosophy of action and moral idealism was acceptable for the householder and the king by those sages of aristocratic origin also who founded Buddhism and Jainism.
There was, however, an inherent tension in the idea of a moral ruler or a purely heroic soldier. How does one draw the line between the skill which leads to success in action and the skill which enables one to act in a spirit of self-sacrifice ? Commitment to action must prompt one to devise means appropriate to the attainment of the end for which the action is directed. Commitment to inner morality, on the other hand, tends to equate success and failure. In practice, this often poses the problem of means versus ends : Theses conflicts are vividly illustrated in the epics. Arjuna and Yudhishtira both pass through moral crisis in action. Krsna and Bhisma act as their guides and philosophers. The gospel of Krsna is generally regarded as a moral philosophy only, although it ends by declaring that the alliance of
na the philosopher with Arjuna the warrior ensures glory, victory, prosperity and the perpetual niti (Dhruvaniti). Niti in its perpetual or absolute sense, is here seen to issue from yoga, the method of skill in action. In accepting yoga the ruler gives expression to the perpetual principles of Right, which ensure success as well as goodness.
If dharma was duty, the content of moral reason (viveka, guha), niti was method, the method of accomplishing duty in concrete situations. Niti, thus, may be regarded as the principles and precepts of prudence. There is an essential continuity between dharma and niti, reason and prudence. That is why Ksattra-dharma and raja-dharma, dandaniti and rajaniti are used together and overlap but they are neither identical nor independent.
Yudhishthira wanted an answer to the manifest contradiction between virtue and politics - dharmacaryă ca rajya ca nityam eva virudhyate.' The answer lay in a comprehensive science of life which Svayambhu is said to have formulated and of which dandaniti was a prime part so much so that the whole was even called by that name. The encyclopaedic work was successively summarized by Siva and then by Indra and Brhaspati. These versions were called Vaisalaksa, Bahudantaka and Barhaspatya. Sukra further summarized it into a work of a thousand chapters. Such isthe history which Bhisma relates of the dandaniti. While the intervention of gods may be disregarded, there is not doubt that treatises on dandaniti attributed to Visala ksa, Bahudantiputra, Brhaspati and Usanas did exist before Kautalya. The beginnings of this science apparently go back to the
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