Patterns of Kingship and Authority in Traditional Asia
There has been a tendency to neglect the political life of Asia, in favour of religious and aesthetic considerations. The myth of the ‘changeless East’ dies hard. Few people are aware that the earliest legislation for the rights of the common man go back to the Sumerians and that outlines for a social contract were drawn up by Indian Buddhists two thousand years before Locke and Rousseau.
First pub...
There has been a tendency to neglect the political life of Asia, in favour of religious and aesthetic considerations. The myth of the ‘changeless East’ dies hard. Few people are aware that the earliest legislation for the rights of the common man go back to the Sumerians and that outlines for a social contract were drawn up by Indian Buddhists two thousand years before Locke and Rousseau.
First pub...