Title of the article

The number 5 as an organizational principle of public rule in the ancient Indian tradition

 Authors 

Sergey V. Korolev — Doctor of Law, Professor, Chief Researcher of the International Law Department, Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences, 10 Znamenka street, Moscow, 119019, Russia, sko.05@mail.ru
Irina S. Lyalina — Сandidate of Law, Researcher of the International Law Department, Institute of State and Law, Russian Academy of Sciences, 10 Znamenka street, Moscow, 119019, Russia, irlyalina@yandex.ru

 Category 

THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL LEGAL SCIENCES

Year,.Volume, Number 

2023, Vol. 11, № 1 (41)

 Pages 

11-21

 Article type 

Original article

 Index UDK 

340.5; 341.213.4; 342.41; 342.7

 DOI 

10.21685/2307-9525-2023-11-1-2

 Abstract 

Background. The magic of numbers attracted the special attention of investigators from the ancient times. In ancient Greece the Pythagorian School elaborated a systematic world outlook, which was based on both religious and philosophical interpretation of numbers. The main and sacred number for them was the number 10. Later on the sacred status of this number was corroborated in the philosophy of Aristotle. In the Far East, namely in the Chinese civilization, the 3000-year tradition of stratagems still exists. These are laconic maxims of political wisdom. Each stratagem consists of four Chinese characters. However, the aim of this work is to investigate the role and status of the number 5 in the everlasting Indian political organization. The attention is focused on famous panchayats, which came into existence in the distant Indian antiquity as a system of autonomous self-ruled rural communities. The ancient Hindus – consciously or not – established a quantitative limit of the qualitative system of public rule. Materials and methods. Based on the Indian panchayat system, which is perhaps the oldest political and administrative institution in the world, the authors briefly analyze the Indian “five-power” system combining multiple methods, including regional studies, historical science, systematic approach, legal science and linguistics. Results. Due to synergetic multiplicity of the applied methods the authors find that the Indian panchayats and, consequently, number 5 has a deep-rooted connection with the Indian caste system, or, more precisely, with the Indian jati as professional and branched communes of relatives. Conclusions. Despite the unique social and cultural context and even the sacred connotation of the number 5 within the Indian world outlook the authors argue that the number 5, purely on formal grounds, may function as a counter-balance against the “Parkinson’s law” in any country and within any social and cultural context.

 Keywords 

public rule, public law, Panchayats, pentarchy, Indian caste system, Jati, numerology

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For citation

Korolev S.V., Lyalina I.S. The number 5 as an organizational principle of public rule in the ancient Indian tradition. Elektronnyy nauchnyy zhurnal "Nauka. Obshchestvo. Gosudarstvo" = Electronic scientific journal "Science. Society. State". 2023;11(1):11–21. (In Russ.). doi:10.21685/2307-9525-2023-11-1-2