The Mauryan Polity c5.s2.t7.1

c5.s2.t7.1

A number of passages can be quoted from the Pañcatantra where explicit references are made to Kauṭalya and his Śāstra.² In a recent Annual Report (1927) of the Mysore Archæological Department the question of the date of the Kauṭalīya Arthaśāstra has been re-opened and an endeavour is made to reaffirm the generally accepted date of the work 350 to 300 B.C.³ It is generally agreed that the stories in the Pañcatantra⁴ are based upon the political maxims propounded in the Kauṭalīya. The Report referred to above says: "The titles, such as separation of friends, winning of friends, war and peace, the loss of one's acquisition and hasty action, given to the five books of the Pañcatantra are political ideas explained in no work earlier than the Arthaśāstra." Again there is reason to believe that the author of the Pañcatantra is indebted to the Arthaśāstra for the use of the word prakṛti in the technical sense of sovereigns to be considered in time of war.⁵ The interpretation of the term in this sense is Kauṭalya's own coining (svasaṃjñā).