17 - King and Ascetic: State Control of Asceticism in the Arthaśāstra

Summary

The Hindu enters this world as a stranger; all his thoughts are directed to another world; he takes no part even when he is driven to act; and when he sacrifices his life, it is but to be delivered from it.

These words of Max Müller reflect a common view held by an earlier generation of scholars. Today few, if any, would concur with this evaluation of Hinduism as a totally world-renouncing and life-negating ideology. The discovery of a wide range of “this-worldly” literature, most prominent being the Arthaśāstra, has acted as a corrective to the simplistic assumptions of the past regarding the general Indian attitude to life. Similar views continue to persist, however, with regard to ascetics and ascetic institutions of India. The idealistic view of ascetics living in total seclusion, separated from the day-to-day life of people and society and unconcerned with the affairs of the world, is supported by the normative literature and by the mythic depiction of ascetics and ascetic communities in the epics and the belles-lettres. Recent studies have begun to question the historicity of this widespread assumption. Ascetics and ascetic organizations played as significant a role in ancient and medieval Indian society as monks and monasteries did in medieval Europe; and in India, as in Europe, the state tried its best to control and to use for its own ends the power and influence of ascetics and ascetic orders.