What makes a kingdom a kingdom? For Nīlakaṇṭha's Nītimayūkha, dated 1793 in the Vikrama era and drawing on the political philosophy of Siṃhasena, the answer is a precise inventory: the sovereign, the minister, the ally, the treasury, the territory, the fort, and the army. A kingdom is those seven limbs, and it stands or falls on how they are held together.
Seven limbs, one body
The manuscript sets out the doctrine plainly, then quotes Kāmandaka to the same effect — the seven-limbed state was a settled idea in Indian political thought, and this text is its practical application.
Having been consecrated, he should rule the kingdom, which consists of seven limbs: the sovereign, minister, ally, treasury, territory, fort, and army. Among these, the sovereign is the king.
The king, it adds, is no ordinary man: the text says the essences of Indra, Wind, Sun, Fire, Varuna, Moon, and the Lord of Wealth are present in him, which is why he surpasses all beings in radiance. If there were no king, the people would be destroyed like a ship without a helmsman.
The trap of the senses
With that power comes a warning. The Nītimayūkha devotes remarkable space to how rulers lose themselves — not to enemies, but to sound, touch, form, taste, and smell, each one capable of destroying even the wise.
Sound, touch, form, taste, and smell as the fifth — each one of these is capable of causing destruction. The deer, allured by song, goes to its death; the elephant goes to the pit, deluded by the touch of the female; the moth falls into the flame; the fish, greedy for bait, goes to death on the hook; the bee, through greed for fragrance, goes to bondage in the lotus.
A ruler's education
The Nītimayūkha is a whole education for a ruler: the consecration ceremonies that legitimate power, the seven limbs that define the state, and the self-discipline that keeps a king from being undone by his own senses. It is statecraft as both ritual and psychology — a beam (mayūkha) of light on how to rule, and how not to be ruled by yourself.