6 THE REVOLT OF THE KSHATRIYAS

AMONG ALMOST ALL PEOPLES and throughout diverse epochs—and with mounting frequency as we approach our times—the wielders of temporal power have tried, as we have said, to free themselves of all superior authority, claiming to hold their power from themselves alone, and so to separate completely the spiritual from the temporal, or even to subordinate the first to the second. This 'insubordination', taken in the etymological sense, has proceeded to differing degrees, the most advanced also being the most recent, as we indicated in the preceding chapter. It has indeed never gone so far in this direction as in modern times, and above all it seems that the various ideas that went along with it in former times were never so integrated into the general mentality as they have become during the last centuries. In this connection, let us repeat what we have already said elsewhere on 'individualism' considered as a characteristic of the modern world:^[1] the function of the spiritual authority is the only one that relates back to a supra-individual domain; and from the moment this authority goes unacknowledged, it is logical that individualism should immediately appear, at least as a tendency if not as a well-defined affirmation,^[2] since all other social functions, beginning with the 'governmental' (which is that of the temporal power), are of a purely human order, individualism being precisely the reduction of the whole of civilization to human elements alone. It is the same with 'naturalism', as was mentioned earlier: since it is linked to metaphysical and transcendent knowledge, the spiritual authority alone has a truly 'supernatural' character, all the rest being of a natural or 'physical' order, as we pointed out regarding the kind of learning that in a traditional civilization is primarily the prerogative of the Kshatriyas. Moreover, individualism and naturalism are quite closely interdependent, for they are basically only two aspects of one and the same thing, looked at either with respect to man or to the world; and it may be said generally that 'naturalistic' or anti-metaphysical doctrines appear in a civilization when the element representing the temporal power becomes predominant over that representing the spiritual authority.^[3]

This is what happened in India itself when the Kshatriyas, no longer content to occupy the second rank in the hierarchy of social functions (even though this second rank included the exercise of all external and visible power), revolted against the authority of the Brahmins and tried to free themselves of all dependence upon them. Here history offers a striking confirmation of what we said above, that the temporal power brings about its own ruin when it disregards its subordination to the spiritual authority, because, like everything belonging to the world of change, it is not sufficient unto itself since change is inconceivable and contradictory without reference to an immutable principle. Any conception that denies the immutable by placing the being entirely in the world of 'becoming' involves an element of contradiction; it will be eminently anti-metaphysical since the metaphysical domain is precisely that of the immutable, of what is beyond nature or 'becoming'; and it could also be called 'temporal', thereby indicating that its point of view is exclusively that of succession. It should be noted moreover that the very use of the word 'temporal', when applied to the power so designated, has as its rai-son d'être to signify that this power does not extend beyond what is involved in succession, or what is subject to change. Modern 'evolu-tionist' theories in their various forms are not the only examples of this error that consists in placing all reality in 'becoming', although some have given it a special nuance by introducing the recent idea of 'progress': theories of this kind have existed since antiquity, nota-bly among the Greeks, and also in certain schools of Buddhism,^[4] which should moreover be regarded as deviant or degenerate forms although in the West it has become customary to consider them as representing 'original Buddhism'. In reality, the more closely one investigates what is known of the latter, the more it appears to differ from the idea that orientalists generally have of it; in particular, it now seems well-established that it never in any way denied Atman or the 'Self', that is, the permanent and immutable principle of the being, which is precisely what we particularly have in view here. Whether the rebel Kshatriyas (or those under their inspiration) introduced this negation later in certain schools of Indian Bud-dhism or whether they only wished to use it for their own ends is a matter that we will not pursue, for it is after all of little importance since the consequences are in any event the same.^[5] There is then clearly a direct link between the negation of all immutable principles and the negation of spiritual authority, between the reduction of all reality to 'becoming' and the affirmation of the supremacy of the Kshatriyas; and it must be added that in subordinating the being entirely to change one thereby reduces it to what is individual, for what allows passage beyond individuality and is transcendent with respect to it can only be the immutable principle of the being. All this clearly shows the solidarity of naturalism and individualism that we just noted.^[6]But the revolt overshot its mark and the Kshatriyas were not able to stop it at the precise point where they could have reaped advantage from what they had set in motion. It was the lowest castes that really profited from it, and this can easily be understood since, once underway down such a slope, it is impossible not to descend all the way to the bottom. The denial of Atman was not the only one introduced by this deviated Buddhism; there was also the denial of caste distinctions, the basis of the traditional social order, and this denial, directed at the outset against the Brahmins, was not long in turning against the Kshatriyas themselves.^[7] In fact, as soon as hierarchy is denied in its very principle, it is impossible to see how any caste can maintain its supremacy over the others, or, for that matter, in the name of what they could claim to impose it. In such conditions anyone can consider that he has as much right to power as anyone else, provided that he in fact has sufficient force at his disposal to seize it and to wield it; and if it is merely a question of material force, is it not obvious that this must be found to the highest degree in those social elements that are both most numerous and, by their function, furthest from any preoccupation touching even indirectly upon spirituality? The denial of caste opened the door to every usurpation, and men of the lowest caste, the Shūdras, were not long in taking advantage of it; some of them in fact were even able to seize hold of royalty and, by a kind of 'repercussion' that lay in the logic of events, dispossess the Kshatriyas of the power that had at first belonged to them legitimately, but of which they themselves had destroyed the legitimacy.^[8]