Page:Myths of the Hindus & Buddhists.djvu/31

Vālmīki's Ideal Society but Rāma replies that he is bound both by knightly duty and by promise to protect the hermits, and that he must obey the ordinance of chivalry.

In its extreme form this doctrine of own-morality is represented as having been fully realized in practice only in the golden age, when none but Brāhmans practised asceticism, or attained to Perfect Enlightenment; in the second age the Brāhmans and Kshatriyas were equally powerful, and it is said that in this age Manu composed the shāstras (law-books) setting forth the duties of the four varnas; in the third age the Vaishyas also practised austerities; and in the fourth even the Shūdras engaged in austere penances. Thus the four ages represent a progressive deterioration from an ideal theocracy to a complete democracy. In the time of Rāma the beginning of the fourth age is already foreshadowed by the one Shūdra who became a yogī, and was slain by Rāma, not so much as a punishment as to avoid the consequential disturbance of society, already manifested in the untimely death of a Brāhman boy.

In an aristocratic society such as Vālmīki contemplates the severity of social discipline increases toward the summit: those who have the greatest power must practise the greatest self-restraint, partly because noblesse oblige, partly because such austere discipline is the necessary condition without which power would rapidly melt away. It is needful to remember this essential character of a true aristocratic society, if we are to understand some of the most significant, and to the democrat and individualist the most incomprehensible and indefensible, episodes of the Rāmāyana. Upon the Kshatriya, and above all upon the king, devolves the duty of maintaining dharma; therefore he must not only protect men and gods against 11