Compare and contrast Dharmasastra and Arthasastra with reference to State power. (2010, 30 Marks)
Ancient India produced two literatures on the state. Dharmashastra, led by the Manusmriti, asks what royal power is for and under which norm it stands. Arthashastra, whose surviving classic is the treatise of Kautilya (Chanakya/Vishnugupta), asks how power is secured, used and enlarged. Both turn on dharma and danda and differ in which of the two they place at the centre.
Common Ground
- Monarchy is necessary. Both argue from matsyanyaya: without the rod, the strong devour the weak (Manu 7.20; Arthashastra 1.4).
- Protection (raksha) is the king’s first duty, and a share of produce is the price of it.
- Both name the same seven elements of the state (Manu 9.294; Arthashastra Book 6).
- Patrick Olivelle has argued that Manu’s chapter on kingship draws on the arthashastra tradition.
Criteria-wise Contrast
| Criterion | Dharmashastra | Arthashastra |
|---|---|---|
| Origin of power | Divine creation; the king is formed from particles of the gods | Human need: people suffering matsyanyaya chose Manu Vaivasvata and paid a sixth of grain (1.13), a story the king’s spies spread |
| Who makes law | The king enforces a dharma known from Veda, smriti and custom | Four feet of law, each later one weightier; a just royal ruling prevails over a conflicting shastra (3.1) |
| Knowledge for rule | Manu’s school admits three sciences and folds reasoning into the Veda | Four sciences, with anvikshiki (Samkhya, Yoga, Lokayata) independent (1.2) |
| Danda | Sacred, graded by varna | A calibrated instrument: too harsh terrifies, too mild invites contempt, as deserved earns respect (1.4) |
| Check on the king | Brahmins restrain an overbearing Kshatriya (Manu 9.320) | Tested ministers, spies, and fear of subjects’ disaffection |
| Religion | The frame of power | Also a tool: temple funds in crisis, staged omens |
| Emergency | Apad-dharma as exception | Covert killing and deception as routine policy |
| Foreign power | Brief sketch of mandala and six measures | Full theory of mandala, shadgunya and the four upayas |
What the Comparison Reveals
- Degree, not kind. Kautilya keeps dharma as the purpose of rule. His king secures yogakshema, and in the happiness of his subjects lies his happiness (1.19). Manu, in turn, absorbs statecraft.
- The real divide is final authority. In Dharmashastra it lies with those who know the texts; in the Arthashastra, with the king’s reason and edict. Kautilya comes closest to a legislative sovereign.
- Different checks. Manu relies on status (the Brahmin) and cosmic sanction; Kautilya relies on prudence, since an oppressed people turns on its ruler. Neither provides a right a subject could enforce.
- Shared hierarchy. The Arthashastra too tells the king never to let people swerve from their own duties (1.3). From B. R. Ambedkar (Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar)’s standpoint, both enforce graded inequality.
- Max Weber in Politics as a Vocation (1919) called the Arthashastra radical Machiavellianism, beside which The Prince is harmless. The charge ignores its welfare duties.
Contemporary Bearing
India’s constitutional state combines both logics. Its power is secular and rational-legal, as in the Arthashastra, yet stands under a higher law it cannot alter: the basic structure doctrine (Kesavananda Bharati, 1973) does for Parliament what dharma did for the king, and it is judicially enforceable. The 44th Amendment (1978) gave apad-dharma a gatekeeper: “armed rebellion” in place of “internal disturbance”, and written Cabinet advice before an Emergency.
Conclusion
The two literatures are complementary: one fixes the ends and limits of state power, the other its means and techniques. Dharmashastra bounds power but ties it to birth; Arthashastra rationalises power but leaves it without external limits. Modern constitutionalism keeps the useful part of each, a rational state bound by higher law, and adds what both lacked, enforceable rights.