Q1.
What might happen if the king considered himself to have divine powers? How would he rule over the people?
Answer
He would rule as though he were answerable to no one — and that is the danger the question is pointing at.
What is likely to happen
- His word becomes the law. He makes the laws, enforces them and decides the punishments himself — the chapter says this is exactly what happened in some parts of the world where kings claimed to have received divine power from God.
- Questioning him becomes an offence against religion, not merely against the state. Ministers, scholars and ordinary people stop giving honest advice.
- No correction is possible. If a god-king cannot be wrong, a mistaken decision cannot be reversed, and there is no court that can check him.
- Rule can slide into subjugation — the chapter's own word for kings who used power to force people to obey.
- Succession disputes turn violent, because the throne carries sacred authority as well as political power.
Why India's tradition pulled the other way: in many parts of India the power of the raja was neither absolute nor beyond question. He was expected to decide within the limits of rājadharma — ruling according to dharma and ensuring the welfare of all. In the Shānti Parva, Bhīṣhma tells Yudhiṣṭhira that the welfare of the people is a raja's highest priority, that he must apply the law without bias, must not get attached to power because it breeds ego and corruption, must seek guidance from wise advisors, and must remember that his authority is temporary and bound by dharma. A king who thinks himself divine breaks every one of those five limits at once.
The counter-example in the chapter: King Chandrāpīḍa of Kashmir wanted a temple built, but a cobbler's hut stood in the way. Instead of demolishing it, the king blamed his own builders for not asking permission, went to the cobbler himself, requested it respectfully and paid compensation. The story ends, ‘For those who desire happiness, there should be no false pride'. That is a king behaving as a servant of dharma — the exact opposite of a king who believes he is a god.
Tip: notice how the same idea survives into modern government. ‘No one is above the law' and ‘equality before the law' are the constitutional versions of rājadharma — limits that apply to the ruler too.