The Mauryan Polity c7.s6.t3.24

c7.s6.t3.24

These rights and privileges which are nothing compared with the duties and responsibilities expected of the monarch have elicited the unwarranted opinion that the *Kauṭalīya* is a secular treatise, the politics of which are immoral. Against this it may be pointed out that the prescriptions of the *Arthaśāstra* always coincide with those of the *Dharmasūtras* and the *Dharmaśāstras*, and it is indeed difficult to mark out any deviations in that treatise from the ordained and accepted path of the land.¹ The privileges enjoyed by the monarch are after all not in any way striking as to arrest our special notice.