State and Government in Ancient India c8.s2.7

c8.s2.7

From about the 8th century B. C. an age of specialisation commenced and the specialists in grammar and etymology, prosody and astronomy began to form separate schools and compose special manuals for the beginners as well as the advanced scholars. The beginning of a school of politics, properly so-called, has to be ascribed to this age of specialisation; it is however certain that it was somewhat later in origin than the above sciences and probably contemporaneous with the school of the Dharma-śāstra. The earliest works on polity, which unfortunately have all been lost, were probably composed in *c.* 7th century B. C.