The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c20.12

c20.12

The researches of the German scholars have clearly established that the Arthaśāstra is a genuine ancient work (*echt und alt*) of Maurya age, and presumably attributed rightly to Chāṇakya or Kauṭilya. Professor Keith throws doubt on the authorship of Kauṭilya (*J. R. A. S.*, 1916, pp. 130–7), and refers to *Z. D. M. G.*, lxviii, 355–9 by Jolly. The German verdict, of course, does not exclude the possibility, or probability, that the existing text may contain minor interpolations of later date, but the bulk of the book certainly dates from the Maurya period. I have pointed out that its contents describe the state of things as existing immediately *before* the establishment of the Maurya empire, while Mr. Shamasastry suggests that it may refer back even to the pre-Buddhistic age (p. xviii). The book seems to be based on much more ancient treatises now lost, and a good deal of it must have been archaic in Maurya times.