Exploring the Origin of State in the Shantiparva

The Shanti Parva, the twelfth and largest book of the Mahabharata, is one of the richest sources of political thinking in the ancient world. Set on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, it records the dying counsel of Bhishma to the newly crowned Yudhishthira. Among the many subjects it covers, one stands out for students of political theory: how the state came into being. Long before Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau wrote about the social contract, the Shanti Parva had already asked why human beings need a ruler at all. The answers it offers are surprisingly sophisticated, blending a memory of a stateless golden age, a fear of anarchy, and two competing explanations for the birth of kingship.

A world before the state 🔗

The Shanti Parva begins its account of the state’s origin with a striking claim: there was once a time when no government existed and people lived well without one. This corresponds to the idea of the Krita Yuga or Satya Yuga, the first and most perfect of the four cosmic ages, when humanity lived in alignment with dharma without any external authority. In this primordial period there were no kings, no courts, no punishment, and no laws. People naturally followed righteousness and looked after one another.

Crucially, the text describes this early society as one without private ownership. Property was held in common, and human relations rested on mutual restraint and shared morality. There was simply no need for an institution to settle disputes, because there were few disputes to settle. People protected each other voluntarily and guided themselves through their own sense of duty. In this reading, the state is not a permanent fixture of human life but something that arose to solve a specific problem.

The turning point: greed and decline 🔗

That problem was moral decline. Over time, the Shanti Parva explains, lust, anger, and greed corrupted human goodness. As the text narrates, people deviated from moral rectitude, and the paradise they had enjoyed turned into something close to a hell. The development of agriculture and the accumulation of goods sharpened this change. As individuals began to claim property as their own, scarcity and rivalry followed. What had once been communal now became contested.

This is a remarkably materialist insight for an ancient text. The emergence of private property creates the conditions for conflict, and conflict creates the demand for protection. Once people had things worth taking, the strong began to prey on the weak. The harmony of the early age could not survive the new economics of ownership, and the absence of any enforcing authority became dangerous rather than idyllic.

Matsyanyaya: the law of the fish 🔗

The Shanti Parva gives this state of disorder a vivid and famous name: Matsyanyaya, or “the law of the fish.” The image is simple and brutal. Just as a big fish swallows a smaller fish in water, in a society without a ruler the strong devour the weak. As scholars note, this concept presupposes an inherent tendency in humans to encroach upon weaker neighbours and to commit acts of disorder and aggression when nothing restrains them.

The parallel with later Western thought is hard to miss. The condition of Matsyanyaya closely resembles what Thomas Hobbes would centuries later call the state of nature, a “war of all against all” in which life is insecure and property is never safe. Ancient Indian thinkers held that in an anarchical country no one can enjoy wealth, because even a robber who seizes goods will soon have them snatched away by someone stronger. Security becomes impossible for everyone, including the powerful.

The failed agreement 🔗

The text adds a detail that makes its theory of origin especially interesting. Before turning to a ruler, the people first tried to fix the problem themselves. According to one narrative in the Shanti Parva, they made an agreement among themselves to maintain chastity and righteousness toward one another. In other words, they attempted a purely voluntary social compact without any enforcing power.

This agreement failed. Promises alone could not hold back greed and aggression, because there was no authority to punish those who broke them. Having realised they could not manage their own affairs, the people turned to a higher power to appoint a ruler over them. This sequence, a voluntary pact that collapses for lack of enforcement, anticipates a central insight of modern contract theory: agreements need an authority capable of backing them with force.

Danda and dandaniti: the science of punishment 🔗

The solution to Matsyanyaya was the creation of danda, meaning the rod or punishment, and the science of using it wisely, known as dandaniti. The word combines danda, the staff or punishment aimed at driving off evils that disrupt social harmony, and niti, the science of guiding the ruler to punish wrongdoers and ensure order. In the Shanti Parva, dandaniti is treated as nothing less than the foundation of organised society.

Bhishma’s warning is stark. According to him, if dandaniti is destroyed, the essence of the three Vedas disappears and the social order based on the four varnas collapses, plunging everyone into suffering. Punishment, properly applied, is what allows people to live happily under law. This is why a king must above all be well versed in dandaniti, the art of administration. The fear of just punishment is what keeps the big fish from swallowing the small.

Two theories of how the state arose 🔗

Here the Shanti Parva becomes genuinely fascinating for political theorists, because it does not offer a single, tidy explanation. Instead it presents two distinct accounts of how kingship began, which scholars have read as a theory of divine origin and a theory of social contract. These accounts sit side by side in the text, sometimes even overlapping in the same narrative.

The theory of divine origin 🔗

In the first account, the state is created through divine intervention. When society descended into chaos, the sages and gods approached the supreme deity and begged him to choose a human capable of ruling others. The classic narrative involves the lineage of kings created for this purpose. Vishnu first produced Virajas, but a corrupt ruler named Vena later appeared in his line. The sages removed and destroyed the wicked Vena, and from him was born Prithu, after whom the earth itself is said to be named Prithvi.

Prithu’s kingship carries unmistakable marks of divine sanction. He was crowned by the gods and sages, and Vishnu is said to have entered his body, declaring that none should surpass him. This is why he received divine worship and was called the first true Rajan. On this reading, the king rules in the name of God, and his authority flows downward from the heavens. The roots of this idea reach back to the Rigveda, which describes the creation of the Kshatriyas as protectors.

The theory of social contract 🔗

The second account points in a very different direction. Here the emphasis falls on the people, who, tired of the law of the fish, deliberately seek out a ruler to protect their interests. In the version involving Manu, the people approach him and ask him to be their king. Manu initially refuses, but agrees only after the people promise to give him a share of their produce, their grain, and their gold in return for protection.

This bargain is the heart of the contractual reading. The relationship between king and subject is reciprocal: the people surrender a portion of their wealth and a measure of obedience, and in exchange the king guarantees their safety, their property, and the rule of dharma. The story of Prithu reinforces this, since he becomes king only after pledging to abide by dandaniti and dharma. Even Vena’s example proves the point. His divinity could not save him once he violated his duties, which suggests that royal authority is conditional on performance, not absolute.

Scholars have long debated which reading is correct. As noted in discussions of these texts, the historian P. V. Kane argued that the Manu account points to divine origin rather than contract, while R. G. Bhandarkar read the very same narrative as a clear social contract, in which people afflicted by anarchy elected their king for safety and protection. The fact that one passage can support both interpretations is itself a sign of how rich the source material is.

The purpose of the state 🔗

Whichever theory one favours, the Shanti Parva is clear about why the state exists. Its central aims are to protect property, to maintain law and order, and above all to uphold dharma. The king is not created to indulge his own power but to perform a function. As the scholarly study of the Shanti Parva’s political ideas in the Indian Journal of Political Science observes, Rajdharma in the text carries two linked meanings: the royal duties of the king and the science of politics itself.

This conditional, duty-bound understanding of kingship has important consequences. Because the king’s authority is tied to his obligations, he cannot rule arbitrarily. He must protect the weak, punish the wicked justly, reward the good, and ensure that every section of society performs its allocated role according to dharma. The Mahabharata even outlines a structure for the state resembling Kautilya’s later Saptanga theory, with seven essential elements: the king, ministers, treasury, the instrument of punishment, allies, territory, and the fortified city. The state, in this vision, is a complete institution with a clear moral purpose.

Why this account still matters 🔗

The Shanti Parva’s discussion of the origin of the state is valuable precisely because it refuses easy answers. It recognises that humans once lived without government, that property and greed disrupted that harmony, that anarchy is intolerable, and that the state arises to restore order. Then it offers two explanations for kingship, one rooted in divine will and one rooted in human agreement, and lets them coexist.

This dual character is what makes the text so useful for comparison with Western political thought. The fear of Matsyanyaya echoes Hobbes, the conditional contract with Manu and Prithu echoes Locke’s idea of government as a trust, and the insistence that an unjust ruler can be removed (as Vena was) anticipates the right of resistance. Far from being a purely religious document, the Shanti Parva engages seriously with questions about authority, obligation, and legitimacy that political theory still wrestles with today.

What do you think? Does the Shanti Parva’s account of the state’s origin work better as a theory of divine right or as an early form of the social contract? And if a king’s authority depends on protecting dharma and the people’s interests, what should happen when a modern government fails to fulfil that same trust?

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanti_Parva
2. https://www.vyasaonline.com/encyclopedia/satya-or-krita-yuga/
3. https://mfisonline.org/four_pillars_details/49
4. https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/essay/matsya-purana-critical-study/d/doc628480.html
5. https://mfisonline.org/four_pillars_details/48
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prithu
7. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41855798
8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saptanga_theory