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Hindu Theory of International Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Benoy Kumar Sarkar
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Extract

The conception of “external” sovereignty was well established in the Hindu philosophy of the state. The Hindu thinkers not only analyzed sovereignty with regard to the constituent elements in a single state. They realized also that sovereignty is not complete unless it is external as well as internal, that is, unless the state can exercise its internal authority unobstructed by, and independently of, other states.

“Great misery,” says Shookra, “comes of dependence on others. There is no greater happiness than that from self-rule.” This is one of the maxims of the Shookra-neeti bearing on the freedom of the rastra, or the land and the people in a state. Kautilya also in his remarks on “foreign rule” expresses the same idea in a negative manner. Under it, we are told in his Artha-shastra, the country is not treated as one's own land, it is impoverished, its wealth carried off, or it is treated “as a commercial article.” The description is suggestive of John Stuart Mill's metaphor of the “cattle farm” applied to the “government of one people by another.”

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , August 1919 , pp. 400 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1919

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References

1 Ch. iii, line 646. Sanskrit text edited by Gustav Oppert for the Madras Government. English translation by B. K. Sarkar in the Panini Office series, Allahabad. For a brief account of Sanskrit literature on politics, see the author's article on “Hindu Political Philosophy” in the Political Science Quarterly for Dec., 1918, pp. 488–491.

2 Book VIII, ch. ii, Shamasastry's translation in the Indian Antiquary for 1910, p. 83. For older uses of the concept of sva-raj (self-rule) vide the Atharva-Veda, XVII, i, 22, 23, also Macdonell and Keith's Vedic Index, Vol. II, p. 494.

3 IV, i, lines 39–43.

4 VII, 154, 156, 207, in the Sacred Books of the East Series.

5 Ch. viii, Sanskrit text in the Bibliotheca Indica Series.

6 Book VI, ch. ii.

7 Book XII, ch. 56, verse 15; V, 127, 19–20; V, 134, 39; Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. XIII, pp. 156, 187–189.

8 Indian Antiquary, 1909, p. 284.

9 VIII, 1, 3, 6.

10 VII, 102.

11 Manu, VII, 107.

12 IV, i, lines 15–17.

13 VIII, 58, 67.

14 Book I, chs. ii, vi.

15 Book I, ch. viii.

16 Lawrence's, Essays on Modern International Law, IV.Google Scholar

17 Page 101.

18 Mahabharata, Book II, ch. 69, verse 15.

19 Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. XIII, pp. 187–189.

20 VII, 154.

21 Shookra-neeti, IV, i, lines 39–41.

22 Ibid., IV, i, lines 42–43.

23 Kamandaki-neeti, VIII, 20; Manu, VII, 156.

24 Artha-shastra, Book VI, ch. ii, in the Indian Antiquary for 1909, p. 283.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 VIII, 16, 17.

28 Book VI, ch. ii, Indian Antiquary, 1909, p. 284.

29 Kautilya, I, 4; Kamandaka, II, 40.

30 Manu, VII, 20; Shookra, I, line 45.

31 I, 4, I, 8, I, 10, etc.

32 Carlyle's, Mediaeval Political Theory in the West, Vol. III, 179.Google Scholar

33 Woolf's, Bartolas, 45, 109, 196.Google Scholar

34 VIII, 4, 1, in Mookerji's, RadhakumudFundamental Unity of India, p. 89.Google Scholar

35 VIII, i, 39.

36 Monier Williams’ Dictionary.

37 Sela-sutta in Sutta-nipata, III, 7, 7; Hardy's, Manual of Buddhism, p. 126.Google Scholar

38 Maha, Sabha XV, 2.

39 Artha-shastra, Mysore edition, pp. 11, 33.

40 Woolf's, Bartolus, pp. 22, 196.Google Scholar

41 Hardy, p. 126.

42 IV, 21, 1.

43 XI, 3, 2, 1, 6.

44 VIII, 4, 1.

45 Ch. i, lines 365–374.

46 A little more than 25 cents in present United States currency.

47 Part I, v, paragraphe, pp. 77, 78, in the Biblioiheca Indica; vide Narendranath Law's “Forms and Types of States in Ancient India,” in the Modern Review (Calcutta), Oct., 1916.

48 V, 1, 1, 13.

49 Mitra's, RajendralalIndo-Aryans, Vol. II, p. 2, 3.Google Scholar

50 VIII, 21–23.

51 XX, 1, 1.

52 Aitareya Brahmana, VIII, 4, 1; for instances of dig-vijaya in Hindu political tradition vide Mookerji, p. 87.

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