A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c6.26.2

c6.26.2

§ The Pali Buddhist canon for the most part falls within the limits of the fourth century B. C. ‖ The only important post-canonical work of the Buddhists which is treated in this volume is the Chatuhśatikā of Āryadeva assigned to the second century A.D.¶ The Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya is ascribed by the unanimous literary tradition of the Hindus to the famous minister of the founder of the imperial Maurya dynasty (acc. circa 322 B. C.). This view, however, while accepted by some Western scholars, has been rejected by others.∗ In the present work we have, without pinning our faith either to the Hindu tradition or to its Western criticism, placed the work at about the end of the fourth century before Christ. Hence the early schools and authors of the Arthaśāstra have been traced back to the immediately preceding period. The last stage in the evolution of Hindu political theories is marked by the treatises ascribed to Kāmandaka, Brihaspati and Śukra, the Jaina works on polity and law, as well as the later Brahminical canon consisting of the minor Smritis and the Purāṇas, the commentaries on the Smritis and the Digests of the Sacred Law. The work of Kāmandaka, as we have mentioned above, is still a chronological puzzle, but it may be placed with confidence in the period from 400 A. D. to 600 A. D.