________________
STATE AND ADMINISTRATION
331
Brahmanical and Buddhistic accounts. They both assert that for a long time after creation of society, there prevailed a golden age of harmony and happiness. Somehow there was a fall from this ideal state.
The Agganna-suttanta of the Digha-nikayal says that formerly on the earth there were human beings who were made of mind and were selfluminous. They fed on rapture and traversed the air in abiding loveliness, Then a change occurred in the order of the universe. They worked somehow under the pressure of circumstances but disorder prevailed. Thereupon they gathered together and selected the most handsome, gracious and capable individual from amongst them and named him Mahajana-Sammata. The public requested him to become their king and put an end to the prevailing chaos, agreeing to give, him a part of their paddy in return of his serivices. This account shows that state originated in a social contract.
The Mahābhārata also reveals an identical tale by saying that after the fall of the Golden Age when the law of jungle prevailed, Brahma, the chief God, composed a treatise on Dharma, Artha, Kāmi and Moksa. It could not be enforced in the absence of a King. Then God Nārāyaṇa by a fiat of his will created a son from his Tejas (Lustre) and named him Virajas. It was, however, Pithu the seventh descendant from Vişņu who was crowned King and endowed with divine virtues, so that he might be a ruler. This account of the Mahabhārata shows that the state was regarded as a divine institution. But the most striking feature of Jainistic view is to eliminate as far as possible the divine creation of the state. We know that Jainism does not regard any creator. It believes that an ordinary soul can become what is called Godhead through evolution. Accordingly, the political as well as other social institutions are the outcome of the changed circumstances. The patriarchs (kulakāras) were only the initiators of ways and means of life. Their mission was to educate the mass in the widest sense of the term. The government was more than protective and paternal. Pre-eminence on one side and need of guidance on the other were the two factors to establish certain relationships and we find that, in course of time, one was converted into the ruler and the other into the ruled. There is no indication that the government was instituted by any definite contract. The state is considered by a Jain author as the source of life and spirit, the aims of which are Dharma, Artha and Kāma all combined.
1 Sacred Books of the Buddhists, IV, p. 77 ff. 2 Śāntiparva, Chap. 58. 3 Beniprasada, Theory of Government in Ancient India, pp. 224-225. • Nitivā., p. 7: 379 Afef ETAYOTI 193148:1
Jain Education International
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
