A History of Sanskrit Literature c31.s2.4

c31.s2.4

The *Arthaçāstra* has often been regarded as comparable to the works of Machiavelli,¹ but there is a certain misunderstanding in such a view. The work is in no sense intended as a treatise on political philosophy; the author remains throughout on the basis of Brahmanical belief. For discussions of fundamental issues such as the relation of right and might, of fate and human endeavour, even the origin of the kingship, we must go to the epic or Buddhist texts.² The *Arthaçāstra* accepts the existence of the three aims of life, Dharma, Artha, and Kāma; it holds Artha the most important, but makes no effort to determine the relation of the three or to derive them from any rational basis. It is content to hold that government is essential to them all; without it there would be the reign of anarchy in which fish eats fish; under the sceptre the four castes and their ordered ways of life prosper, Dharma, Artha, Kāma are fulfilled. The state, we may say with Machiavelli and Mussolini, is all in all, but the *Arthaçāstra* means something quite definite by the state, namely an order of society which the state does not create, but which it exists to secure. The ways of a king, for the text assumes that rule must be royal, are dictated by the necessity of preserving his power; as Hobbes logically and deliberately, so the *Arthaçāstra* implicitly argues, the king's duty of securing the welfare of the system of which he is protector gives to him a morality of his own. It is not much use comparing with this such dicta as Spinoza's¹ *uniuscuiusque ius potentia eius definitur*, or the Hegelian theory of the state; these are philosophical doctrines based on reasonings which the *Arthaçāstra* does not touch. What we have instead is the carrying out quite consistently of the doctrine that the end, the maintenance of a firm rule, justifies the means, coupled with the assumption that a reign of peace between neighbouring states is not to be dreamed of, so that in addition to maintaining peace in the realm the king must always be prepared for foreign war. In the use of means to secure obedience and to defeat enemies the *Arthaçāstra* is as ruthless as Machiavelli: spies abound, the harem and the royal family are suspect, and princes are deliberately debauched to prevent their rending, like crabs, their parent; orthodox as is the work, it advocates the shameless use of religion as a cloak for baseness. Moreover, it lacks the redeeming quality of Machiavelli, his historical method which makes him turn at every hand to the facts of history; at best the *Arthaçāstra* gives us names of kings who came to grief by one fault or another. Nor have we anything to compare with Machiavelli's investigations as to the best form of government for a state, in which he reveals his preference for a measure of democratic rule. The *Arthaçāstra* recognizes the risks run by a king from court intrigues, military oligarchical factions, false ministers, unruly heads of gilds; it even seems to recognize him as no more than a servant of the state, but of control by the people or constitutional limitations it knows nothing.