A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.27

c8.s3.27

Thus the sources of the early Arthaśāstra works fall into two principal categories, namely, the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya and the Mahābhārata along with the Manusamhitā. Kauṭilya's treatise is generally assigned to the period of Chandragupta Maurya's reign (c. 322-298 B. C.), while the Manusamhitā and the Mahābhārata are held to belong to the first two centuries before and after the Christian era. It would therefore appear *prima facie* that Kauṭilya's citations belonged to the early stage of the Arthaśāstra literature, while those of the Mahābhārata represented a somewhat later phase of the same. This presumption is confirmed by the internal evidence, since the extracts quoted in the Śāntiparvan imply an advanced stage of speculation and often involve the formulation of abstract principles, while Kauṭilya's citations belong to a period when speculation had not yet emerged from the leading-strings of the discussion on concrete issues, and it still bore the stamp of immaturity. Nevertheless the quotations in the Mahābhārata must have acquired a respectable degree of antiquity at the time of its composition, for the canonical author cites them as authoritative expositions of the king's duties (rājadharma) and applies to them the significant title of old legend (itihāsam purātanam).[^\dagger]