India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s1.48

c12.s1.48

Secret means employed in the espionage office were called *upanishat*, a pejorative sense of the riginal word *Upanishad* which denoted occult or mystic doctrine (1.4.79). Kauṭilya uses *Aupanishadikam* in the same sense (*Artha.*, XV). The adoption of such third degree methods was termed *upanishatkṛitya*. The Gaṇa-pāṭha (IV.4.12) also mentions *aupanishadika*, a spy making his living by secret means called *upanishat* (*upanishadā jīvati*). In this connection attention may be drawn to the term *vishya*, which according to Pāṇini denoted a person marked out for administering poison (*visheṇa vadhyaḥ*, IV.4.91). This refers to the nefarious practice of *rasadāḥ*, who formed a branch of the secret service, (*Artha.*, I.12, p. 21; V.3, 248).