MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 729
VIII. 418. “With vigilant care should the King exert himself in compelling merchants and mechanics to perform their respective duties ; for, when such men swerve from their duty, they throw this world into confusion.”
Manu does not stop with the mere enunciation of the duty of the King in this behalf. He……… to ensure that the King shall at all times perform his duty to maintain and preserve the Established Order. Manu therefore makes two further provisions. One provision is to make the failure of the King to maintain the Established Order an offence for which the King become liable for prosecution and punishment like a common man. This would be clear from the following citations from Manu—
VIII. 335. “Neither a father, nor a preceptor, nor a friend, nor a mother, nor a wife, nor a son, nor a domestic priest must be left unpunished by the king, if they adhere not with firmness to their duty.”
VIII. 336. “Where another man of lower birth would be fined one pana, the king shall be fined a thousand, and he shall give the fine to the priests, or cast it into the river, this is a sacred rule.”
The other provision made by Manu against a King who is either negligent or opposed to the Established Order is to invest the three classes, Brahmins, Kshatriya and Vaishya with a right to rise in armed rebellion against the King.
VIII. 348. “The twice-born may take arms, when their duty is obstructed by force ; and when, in some evil time, a disaster has befallen the twice- born classes.”
(Left incomplete in the Ms—ed)
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