ABSTRACT
Searching for the earliest political order in ancient India, one comes across two important concepts, Rta and Dharma. They are found in the Rig Veda and recur regularly in subsequent texts. Rta literally means “the course of things” and it is the order of the universe. It is the preordained divine natural order that is self-existent. Even gods abide by it as they are created by it. The primary duty of everyone including human beings is to follow this order. This order is so predominant and overriding that all other kinds of orders including causal, regulative, hierarchical, serial and sequential, social and political orders flow from this order. So this is the first theoretical account of an order of which the political is a mere part. Though permanent in nature and beyond change, this order nevertheless appears in different manifestations. This is perhaps one of the earliest sources where the same being appearing differently is accounted for.
