A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c10.109

c10.109

Turning next to the consideration of the authors' attitude towards morality in so far as this is manifested in their rules of statecraft, we think we can detect in them a qualified acceptance of the teaching of the Arthaśāstra. These authors, indeed, no doubt in accordance with their stricter adherence to the concept of the religious basis of human existence repudiate almost entirely the dismal creed of cruelty and deceit which formed, as we have seen in another place, the essence of the Arthaśāstra statecraft. Manu, for example, while enjoining the king to be on his guard against the treachery of his enemies,