State and Government in Ancient India c8.s2.19

c8.s2.19

If the quotations from the works of his predecessors given by Kauṭilya can be taken as representative of their contents, we may well conclude that there was a fairly strong school of politics in India from c. 500 B.C. This school would be the counterpart of the Dharmsūtra school, which existed at this period. Whether the one school was Brahmanical and the other Kshatriya, it is difficult to state. It is, however, quite likely that some of the writers of the Nīti school may well have belonged to the class of the administrators of the age.