Monarchy in Ancient India - Kingship and The Vedas

Kingship and The Vedas

Vedic ideas about the establishment of the office of the steve king ultimately draw upon legends about the coronation of one god as king of all others. Legends abound as to which of the gods won this position; In the Ṛg Veda, Indra, Agni, Soma, Yama, and Varuṇa are all addressed as "King." Indeed, kingship in the Ṛg Veda largely manifests only in the form of gods as kings. Hymns directly addressed to earthly kings, like 10.173-10.175, are the exception rather than the rule. In these hymns, the king is said to have been "established" by Indra and "made victorious" by Soma and Savitṛ. Although this implies a close dependence of the king upon the gods, the rarity of the figure of the human king in the Ṛg Veda agrees with the idea that kings at this time were basically on a level with tribal chiefs and were not viewed as divine. There is a provocative line at 10.124.8 which mentions people electing their king, and 3.4.2 in the Atharvaveda seems to confirm this. Also, several hymns in the Ṛg Veda demonstrate the importance of the samiti (10.166.4, 10.191), the governing assembly, further indicating that the early Vedic king ruled in a tribal setting where decision making by assembly still played a major role.

As was stated above, the king was not considered divine in the early Vedic period. By the time the Brāhmaṇas were composed, however, the king was increasingly associated with the gods through his qualities and the rituals he performed. Also by this time, kingship had transitioned to a hereditary position and the samiti began to wane in importance.