ABSTRACT
The centralizing bureaucratic Mauryan Empire produced a political atmosphere very different from that which was to be found in the quasi-feudal kingdoms of later times. Speculations from all the periods have become part of the common Indian heritage. Ancient India allowed considerable freedom of speculation. It is hardly necessary to point out that, as well as the six orthodox philosophical systems, schismatic and heterodox schools of thought flourished freely, and differences in metaphysics and theology were to some extent reflected in the realm of political ideas. The orthodox conception of kingship was certainly the more influential in the thought of pre-Muslim India, and we find even Buddhist and Jain kings laying claim to divinity. Rajya, the term generally translated ‘state’ and used in that sense in modern Indian languages, is a secondary nominal formation from the word raja, and etymologically implies ‘that which pertains to the king’.
