A History of Sanskrit Literature c31.s2.1

c31.s2.1

As usual we find as the earliest preserved text a work exhibiting every sign of a long prior development, which, however, by reason of its completeness has deprived earlier treatises of the possibility of survival. The *Arthaçāstra* made known to us in 1909, is unquestionably one of the most interesting works in Sanskrit, because it affords a vast amount of detailed information about the practical side of Indian life as opposed to the spiritual, and, while in parts it covers ground touched on in the treatises on Dharma, it does so with a wealth and accuracy of detail which is completely other than the often vague generalities which are the stock-in-trade of these texts. As we have it, the book is divided into fifteen great sections, Adhikaraṇas, and 180 subdivisions, Prakaraṇas, but this division is crossed by one into chapters, Adhyāyas, which are marked off from the prose of the work by the insertion of verses summing up the doctrine expounded above. There is the possibility that this division is secondary, possibly also the verses which mark it out.