A History of Sanskrit Literature c31.s2.2

Language: English

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Adhikaraṇa i deals with the bringing up and education of a prince. He is to study philosophy including Sāṁkhya, Yoga, and the Lokāyata, religion including the Vedas and Vedāṅgas—the *Arthaçāstra* accepts wholesale the Brahmanical theory of the castes and their duties,—economics, agriculture, pastoral pursuits, trade and industry, and polity, Daṇḍanīti. The ministers of the king, his council, are described, and above all his spies who serve him to secure a firm hold over all within the realm, high and low, from the princes of his house who aim at his death to the humblest people; his emissaries abroad are spies as well as ambassadors, and spies serve to keep him informed of all that happens to his neighbours. His duties are enumerated, a crushing burden in seeming. His harem receives elaborate attention and insistence is laid on the dangers to which he is exposed in it, historic examples being heaped up of kings slain there. But not only in the palace, but also in streets and all public places, elaborate precaution is necessary for the royal safety from assassination. In the following book we have given in detail the duties of a vast army of inspectors, showing the detailed control of administration exercised in an Indian state. In iii law is discussed, while in iv is taken up the topic of the repression of evil-doers by police action and heavy penalties;

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cheating doctors and tradesmen are among those denounced, while measures are taken to prevent artificial increase of prices, adulteration, use of false weights, &c. Book v is instructive; it explains how a king can rid himself of a minister of whom he is tired, either by sending him on an expedition and providing bravos to set on him and slay him at the front, or by procuring these ruffians to allow themselves to be captured with weapons on them in the royal presence, when they confess that they were agents of the obnoxious minister who is then promptly disposed of. But not less ingenious are the means of extorting taxes to fill the treasury. The peasantry and handworkers are to be cajoled or threatened into parting with their goods, spies are to induce rich men to offer benevolences, miraculous appearances of temples and statues are to bring crowds flocking and tolls from them,¹ or secret agents are to pretend that there are demons in trees and collect gold to ban them, or rich men can be accused of crime, and their goods and lives forfeited. Heretics also may be plundered. With excellent taste there follows a chapter on the remuneration of the royal entourage, ranging from 48,000 to 60 *paṇas* yearly. In vi we come to more serious things; the seven elements of politics are described, the king, minister, land, fort, treasure, army, and ally, and this is followed by a purely formal analysis of inter-state relations carried out in much detail, but without life or reality.

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Book vii deals with the six possible causes of action, peace, war, neutrality, preparation to march out, alliance, and doubtful attitude, while viii enumerates the evils that may arise from a king’s addiction to hunting, gambling, women, and drink, and the misfortunes which fire, water, or other cause may bring on a land. Books ix and x deal with war; the king is given abundant ruses to avoid a fair fight; if he must do so, he encourages the soldiers by assuring them that he is a paid servant of the state like themselves, asks them to be true to their salt, and is aided by astrologers, priests, and bards in his efforts. But cunning is better, and in xi we are told how the king is to sow dissension in and destroy the cohesion of hostile aristocracies of warriors, for which purpose women will readily serve. In xii further means by which a weak king may aggrandize himself are adduced; spies, secret agents, bravos, poisoners, including women, can give aid, whether by murdering the enemy king, or poisoning food, or bringing about the fall of walls at places of pilgrimage. In xiii we are told how a king can capture a fortified city by spreading the view of his omniscience and enjoyment of divine favour. The former he can attain by stating things that he has learned secretly from spies, the latter by addressing and receiving replies from a statue in which an agent is concealed.

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Or an enemy king can be tempted to hold conversation with an alleged ascetic who is four hundred years old and is about to renew his life by entering into fire; the king is asked to attend with his family the miracle, and, when thus off his guard, is disposed of, as indeed he deserves to be. But we do hear also of a genuine capture by force of arms, followed by maxims for securing the affection and loyalty of a conquered people. He is to adopt their dress and customs, respect and share in their religion, by land grants and immunity from taxation attract the favour of the upper classes, in all ways surpass the virtues, if any, of his defeated foe, because these means are the mode adapted to secure his end. With xiv we come to the Aupaniṣadika, or secret part, consisting of recipes to enable one to murder, to cause blindness or madness, and so on. A man is taught also how to make himself invisible, to see in the dark, to fast for a month, to walk unharmed through fire, to change his colour, to send men and beasts to sleep; the text is extremely obscure, but we cannot reject it on that ground or because of its—to us worthless—character. The last book gives a plan of the work, and sets forth with examples thirty-two methodological principles used in the discussion, a number contrasting remarkably with the five or six elsewhere known.