Considerations on Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Polity - Sir Subrahmanya Aiyar Lecture 1914

It is in great part an ideal picture of that which in the view of the Brahmans ought to he the law '. Putting aside the other implications of the verdict, the main proposition, which denies histori- city to the subject matter of the Code—can hardly be maintained to-day in regard to the entire content of even the Manu Smriti, and much less to some of the other Dharmasastras. [...] And, the high watermark of its power was— paradoxical as- it may appear to say so--usually reached after a period of foreign immigration, inroad or conquest-30 as for instance in the epoch of Gupta supremacy, follow- ing the irruption of the Yavanas (Indo-Bactrians and Indo- Parthians), the Sakas, the Kusdanas and the Pallavas, and in the Rajput period, after the inroads of the Hunas, the Gurjaras [...] This was the working of the axiom of the common laN7 of the time that it was the duty of the State and of the statesman to enforce every local, tribal, caste, communal or coi-noration usage or custom, that could be proved to be genuine, and to be not inconsistent with the interests or the mandates of the State. [...] In this conception of the need for Government, we may discover the explanation for the declarations exalting the office and power of the king, for the general horror of anarchy (Arajata) and interregnums, the"49 acceptance of heredity ar. d primogeniture in the rules for the succession to the cro. ,vn, and the suggestion that the throne should be filled on its vacancy, somehow, even if the accepted [...] The sacerdotal conception of the origin of the State, and the early rise of the priest- hood in the history of our country, the very early division of the people by varnas (caste), all combined to raise this maintenance of Dharma to the rank of one of the first duties of the State.