Paduka Rajya Philosopher’s state civita Dei
That a good state is civitas dei is readily accepted. It is, however, the distortion of its purport, the perversion of its essence, and the prostitution of its purpose for the most unworthy of the selfish ends of individuals and cliques that is repudiated. All civitas is dei. Deus – the great God, is one, and “One only without a second”. That God is neither tribal, nor local nor sectarian. He is one and universal. There is no “private” ownership in God. “Private” ownership is itself ungodly. God (Deus) is one and universal. The unity and universality of God can not be over emphasised. If Deus is one and universal there can be no civitas dei which is either tribal or local or sectarian. The civitas, if it is to be dei, must be as universal as the Deus whose civitas it is. To speak of a tribal or a local or a sectarian civitas dei is a self-contradiction. Civitas Dei is a “state” of all-inclusion and no-inclusion. It is the function of that state to sustain the all-inclusion and maintain the no-inclusion; for that sustenance and maintenance is the function of Deus. All-exclusion and no-inclusion is civitas diaboli. To the extent to which a civitas is inclusive it is dei and therefore divine. To the extent to which it is exclusive it is diaboli, and therefore diabolic. Law includes all and all are included in law and in accordance with law. Lawlessness excludes all and excludes them all from law and therefore from each other God wants all and wants them all to be good and useful; for they are all the "offspring of His own body" and therefore cannot be excluded from that body. It is the body of Virat-Purusha. That is the body.politic. and that body-politic is all inclusive and all-sustaining. It is universal. Nothing is a surplusage to God. Everything exists in His will and as His wealth to His greater glory That is the glory of everything in existence. The man who does not see the usefulness of another only sees his own uselessness. It is a useless mind that does not see the usefulness of others "Everything that stands, stands in God, and stands for God. To know that is alone true knowledge; all else is mere dross". So proclaims the great Saint (43). "Every tender soul that blossoms into corporeal form is but the blossom of the Lord's form" is the hallowed articulation of Sathakopa ~ the Paduka-lncarnate 44 Truth is the truth of "all" and God is the God of all. By making truth and God tribal or local, or sectarian, we are only exhibiting our own pettiness and thereby making "truth" and "God" as petty as ourselves. In that pettiness we are degrading "truth" and "God" to our own level of pettiness so as to make them worthy of our petty worship in exclusion. Such a worship is the most degraded form of worship. The good, the virtuous, are great, and their greatness is the greatness of their mind. It is Magnanimity The Lord, in His magnanimity, has been pleased to call the magnanimous by the hollowed name of "Mahatmas' (45). It is for 'Mahatmas' that the Lord says He is thirsting. It is those rnahatmas for whom the Lord and the Lord for whom the mahatmas are mutually thirsting, that the petty man excludes and it is their place that he takes in his exclusive theocracy. The theoretical form of that theocracy is, in its ultimate analysis, either political pantheism orpolitical acosmism. They are kins, if not twins, and is really very little to choose between them. Let us not, however, trespass into political metaphysics which is more metaphysical than metaphysics itself. Rajya or Raj (its abbreviated form)which is the equivalent of "State", is neither regional nor tribal. It is essentially functional. "Rajya" is a Sanskrit word and in Sanskrit it means "The function of the ruler". The great sageParasara has described that function as the function "delighting the people" (46). The ethics of the ruler is the aesthetics of the people. It is the virtuous function of making people happy in virtuous company. It is the one function of synthesising and unifying man into a society in the dharma of complementarity in which the existence and function of every member needs the existence and function of every other member and in which all live an abundant life in mutual cordiality. All truth- is the truth of, organic unity, all ethics, is the ethics of organic function, and all joy. is the. joy of organic membership. The State is a single anatomical structure living in the abundance of its moral vitality. It is its life that all people breathe alike and together. Anything to the extent to which it tends to be disruptive of the integrity of that constitution, of that principle of integrating vitality, is repugnant to the constitution, and tends to its emasculation. That vitality which is essentially integral and functionally integrating.the State into a "union" is impartible and inalienable. It is intolerant of any division or distribution of that vitality in terms of regional disruption which are euphemistically called local or provincial autonomy. The theory that in a single body politic there can be several autonomous sovereign bodies is radically vicious. It is constitutional heresy and nomenclatorial extravagance. It is that heresy and extravagance that has been responsible for the creation of interpugnacious eruptions territorial and tribal, within the single unit of one body politic. They are the very eruptions of the body politic which are subversive of the integrating vitality of that body. No state, which in its constitutional essence is integral, can be cut into autonomous parts in terms either of tribality or of territoriality. Every good and vital state is an integration and a,union of all .places and tribes within the sovereign jurisdiction of the state in which everyone breathes the single life of the state. The life of the state is the breath of the people. The principle of all good constitution is the one vital principle of goodness, and all goodness is the goodness of integrating vitality. To constitute is to integrate in vitality.All ease is the ease of integration~ and all disease is the disease of disintegration and it is as true of the biological body as of the body politic. A state is not a geographical or a tribal entity. It is the integral unity. That unity is moral essence - the very essence of dharma. That great polltical philosopher Burke says:- "Nation is a moral essence not a geographical arrangement or a denomination of the nomenclator". Mere locality does not constitute a body politic.....The body politic of France existed in the majesty of its throne; in the dignity of its nobility. in the honourof its gentry, in the sanctity of its clergy, in the reverence of its magistracy, in the weight and consideration due to its landed property in the several bailliages, in. the respect due to its movable substance represented by Corporations of the kingdom. All these particular moleculae united form the great mass of what is truly the body politic in all countries" 47. It is the duty of the ruler to maintain in his moralmight the purity of that moral: essence. That a polity is moral essence and that the virtuous are its guards and guides is a vltal constitutional truth. The greatest and noblest of minds Of all countries and of all ages have proclaimed thy sanctity and the inviolability of that truth. They have declared with one voice that earthly rulership inheres in the virtuous. Whatever be the form of government, the soul of all good government is selfless service to God and to God's humanity in all love and loyalty to God. The virtuous are the servants of God and in their service they are on the side of God. God is therefore on their side and has committed His world to their care and guidance Arjuna was on the side of God and therefore God was on his side. Asked, if he believed whether God was on his side, that noble soul - Abraham Lincoln, is said to have replied in all the strength of his love of God, that he was not ccncerned with whether God was on his side, but that he was concerned with whether he was on the side of God. That is how selfless nobility concerns itself. All authority is God's and it is God's authority that is being served by the virtuous in their service to God as the guards of the moral essence of State. It is for that service that God has invested the virtuous with His own authority -- an authority to serve Him and His servants, and in that authority, the virtuous have been constituted the authorized servants of God. It is in that investiture and constitution that true servants are marked off from counterfeit servants whose rule of "service" is self-service In that investiture by God the virtuous are constituted the "Paduka" of God. It is the "vision" of that investiture that the Celestial Bard Valmiki saw, and it is the glory of that investiture that he sang. "Verily, it is these Padukas that assure the abiding happiness of the whole universe" is the message of the Poet. Paduka in its service is the one friend, philosopher and guide of God and in its rule is the one friend, philosopher, and guide of man. It is the service of bringing God to man and the rule of taking man to God, and in that service- rule, Paduka brings about the abiding union of human service with Divine essence. It is a union of earth and Heaven, Of Nature and Grace. It is a union of both the realms in one and that one realm the one union, is Paduka's. Paduka is truly the "Philosopher' and the true 'philosopher'. The phllosopher's state of Plato is the echo of the Padlukaraj of Valmiki and of the present author and will find in it its full elucidation. That 'Philosopher" is the later "Peter" and 'Caesar" in one. The later- day conflict between "Peter" and "Caesar" was due to adventitious circumstances. It is in no way detracts from the essential identity of the serving personality of the "Philosopher". One of the papal titles is "servus servorum" (the servant of servants). It is by that title that Dante in his "vision' has named Boniface VIII.48 .That is the glory of Dante's vision. The conflict between "secular" and "religious" is as unfounded as it is unreal.. The conflict is a very "secular" one brought about for securing very "secular" ends. Governance is a very sacred act and therefore a very great act of sacrifice. It is in sacrifice that Paduka rules49 . Paduka wills that it should 'serve'. God wills that it should 'rule'. The serving will of Paduka is the ruling will of God. Rule is the sacrifice (yagna) of Paduka - the Philosopher, and in that sacrifice the State becomes consecrated and blessed (yagnasishta). One of the greatest saints of all times, himself a king-philosopher, Kulasekhara Alvar, says- "O Lord! Verily do l, Thy humble servant. thirst for Thee alone, even as all earthly power and wealth thirst for those alone who in their thirst for Thee alone have no thirst for them at all"50 It is for that reason - for the reason of the consecrtion of the state in the sacrifice of the "philosopher" - that the state covets the "philosopher". Those who covet the state are "robbers" and those whom the state covets are "philosophers". Paduka is the "Philosopher" and the state is therefore Paduka's . Paduka is a union and it is in that union that peace (santi) reigns supreme. It is the reign of the Upanishadic "santi, santi,santi"(peace ,peace, peace). May 'santi' reign supreme in our "union". May Paduka reign supreme in that "Union" in the meridian splendour of its moral might and bring about, in fulfilment of the Poet's Prophecy, peace and happiness to the whole universe.
*******************************************************
43.Thirumalisai Alvar Nanmukan Thiruvantadi 54.
44. Peria Thiruvantadi 73.
45. Gita VII 19 and Ramanuja Bhashya ibid
46. Vishnu Purana I 13.93
47. Letters on a Rigicide Peace: Vol V Pp219, 220 (Bohn’s)
48. Inferno XV
49. Paduka 127
50. Perumal Tirumoli 5.9 cf Brahadaranyaka 6.4.23
Paduka 113, 126, 127, 144, 160 etc.
