[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Hindu Administrative Institutions](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929) › c5.4 # Hindu Administrative Institutions c5.4 Hindu Administrative Institutions c5.4 - **Language:** English ### [c5.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929.c5.4) The question would arise from this limitation whether the \*Arthaśāstra\* of Kauṭilya is a unified work of a single author or of a single age, and whether it actually portrays the institutions of the time. The matter has been discussed with energy, very nearly a score of years now, and anything like an unchallenged conclusion can hardly on by local bodies for comparatively small states. That remained the bedrock of civil administration and the administration of states, kingdoms and empires, was built upon this bedrock of ordered government. If that is granted, there is no difficulty in understanding that what seems to be laid down for a congeries of smaller states cannot be far different from what was necessary for a really imperial state. Examined in this light, it will be found that even the \*Arthaśāstra\* polity provides the machinery for carrying on the imperial administration as well as the administration of a comparatively small state. The fact that Kauṭilya lays down the means by which a state, placed in the middle of a number of states round about it of equal strength, can make conquests of its neighbours and become an imperial state is just what gives the indication that Cāṇakya helped to evolve from out of a powerful single state an empire, far flung and reaching to the frontiers which British statesmen, even of the twentieth century, have sighed for in vain, at least on one side of India. - [Previous: c5.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929.c5.3) - [Next: c5.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929.c5.5) - [Up: c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929.c5) ## Linked texts (1) - [Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.kautilya) — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929.c5.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1929.c5.4) · Pramāṇa