Mahabharata
Contents
Section-I. Introduction
Section-II. Divine Origin of the King
Section-III. Virtues of the Ideal King
Section-IV. Duties of the King
Section-V. Recruitment of Government Officials
Section-VI. Revenue Administration
Section-VII. Caste System & Division of Labor
Notes
References
The Author
Section-I. Introduction
As regards the answer to the question, ‘which is the greatest literary creation in human history’, my unequivocal answer is: the great Indian Epic Mahabharata composed according to ancient Indian texts by the great sage and scholar Vyasadeva. The epic touches upon all aspects of human life, the complexities of human relations embracing all the conceivable strata of the society, the multifarious dimensions of clashes and contradictions & intricacies of the economic and political issues, the objectives and modus operandi of a welfare oriented state ensuring growth, equity and justice - in a nutshell, the essence of human knowledge embedded in all the ancient Indian texts on religion, laws, statecraft, economics and extra-mundane philosophy.
In Santi Parva of the epic, most of the knowledge on statecraft, economics and moral philosophy are disseminated to the King Yudhisthira by their grand father Bhishma lying on deathbed of the arrows of Arjuna. He had to go through this ordeal as a punishment for a crime committed in the Heaven.1 About the origin of the vast body of knowledge, Bhishma states that in the Krita age2 people were righteous and honest. But soon greed, lust and other vices corrupted human society and it was at the point of losing all moral and ethical teachings learnt in course of millennia. The great thinkers and the gods approached the creator praying for the way out and in response the creator wrote a book covering hundred thousand chapters for salvation of human society. To quote:
“The Grandsire then composed by his own intelligence a treatise consisting of a hundred thousand chapters. In it were treated the subject of
Section-I. Introduction
Section-II. Divine Origin of the King
Section-III. Virtues of the Ideal King
Section-IV. Duties of the King
Section-V. Recruitment of Government Officials
Section-VI. Revenue Administration
Section-VII. Caste System & Division of Labor
Notes
References
The Author
Section-I. Introduction
As regards the answer to the question, ‘which is the greatest literary creation in human history’, my unequivocal answer is: the great Indian Epic Mahabharata composed according to ancient Indian texts by the great sage and scholar Vyasadeva. The epic touches upon all aspects of human life, the complexities of human relations embracing all the conceivable strata of the society, the multifarious dimensions of clashes and contradictions & intricacies of the economic and political issues, the objectives and modus operandi of a welfare oriented state ensuring growth, equity and justice - in a nutshell, the essence of human knowledge embedded in all the ancient Indian texts on religion, laws, statecraft, economics and extra-mundane philosophy.
In Santi Parva of the epic, most of the knowledge on statecraft, economics and moral philosophy are disseminated to the King Yudhisthira by their grand father Bhishma lying on deathbed of the arrows of Arjuna. He had to go through this ordeal as a punishment for a crime committed in the Heaven.1 About the origin of the vast body of knowledge, Bhishma states that in the Krita age2 people were righteous and honest. But soon greed, lust and other vices corrupted human society and it was at the point of losing all moral and ethical teachings learnt in course of millennia. The great thinkers and the gods approached the creator praying for the way out and in response the creator wrote a book covering hundred thousand chapters for salvation of human society. To quote:
“The Grandsire then composed by his own intelligence a treatise consisting of a hundred thousand chapters. In it were treated the subject of