A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.30

c8.s3.30

∗ We are prepared to accept Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar's date for the beginning of the Arthaśāstra but we demur to some of his arguments. He writes (op. cit. p. 110), "All things considered, it is impossible to bring down the beginning of Indian thought in the sphere of Arthaśāstra to any period later than 650 B. C." In support of this view he advances, *inter alia*, the following reasons:—(1) One of the concluding verses of Kauṭilya's work, which begins with the words 'yena śāstram cha śastram cha,' means that the Arthaśāstra was falling into desuetude in Kauṭilya's time and was rescued from oblivion by that author. (2) Kauṭilya does not mention Gauraśiras while he quotes the six other teachers of kingly science that are referred to in Ch. LVIII of the Śāntiparvan. Therefore Gauraśiras and probably other teachers as well were forgotten in Kauṭilya's time. (3) The Śāntiparvan (Ch. LIX) attributes the origin of Daṇḍanīti to the god Brahmā and the creation of the different treatises on it to the different gods and demi-gods. "This means that in the 4th century B. C. Arthaśāstra was looked upon as having come from such a hoary antiquity that it was believed to have emanated from the divine, and not from the human, mind." Now the correct meaning of the reference to Arthaśāstra in the verse above stated seems to be that Kauṭilya brought the science from a state of chaos to order and harmony, not that he recovered it from oblivion (Infra, Ch. III). The second argument is of little or no weight, since if Kauṭilya fails to quote Gauraśiras, the Mahābhārata is silent about other authors of the Arthaśāstra that are mentioned by Kauṭilya. Such are Parāśara (Kaut. pp. 13, 27, 32, 323, and 328), Piśuna (Ibid pp. 14, 28, 33, 253, 323, and 329), Vātavyādhi (Kaut. pp. 14, 33, 263, 324, 330), and Kātyāyana, Kaṇiṅka Bhāradvāja, Dīrghachārāyaṇa (or perhaps Chārāyaṇa, vide Shamasastry's Revised Edition of Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra, Introduction, p. xxi) Ghoṭamukha, Kiñjalka as well as Piśunaputra (Kaut. p. 251). Nor can it be definitely proved that Kauṭilya was unacquainted with Gauraśiras. It is not at all improbable that Gauraśiras is identical with the equally mysterious masters of the Arthaśāstra (āchāryyas) whom Kauṭilya quotes no less than Prof. D. R. Bhandarkar (op. cit. p. 93) : “In Chapter 235 of the Śāntiparvan we have another tradition narrated about this work (viz., the archetypal work of Brahmā on Daṇḍanīti). There its authorship has been ascribed to eight sages, who read it out to the god Nārāyaṇa. The god was exceedingly pleased with what he heard, and said : ‘Excellent is this treatise that ye have composed consisting of a hundred thousand verses........Guided by it Svāyambhuva Manu will himself promulgate to the world its code of dharma, and Uśanas and Brihaspati compose their treatises based upon it’. We are then told that this original work of the sages will last up to the time of king Uparicharu and disappear upon his death.” To understand the real significance of the theory of divine creation of Daṇḍanīti, it is necessary to consider the object with which the section on kingly duties in the Śāntiparvan seems to have been written. This, we think, was nothing less than the formulation of the sum of duties relating to the king, conceived with an almost exclusive reference to his public functions. In these circumstances nothing would be more natural than for the author to magnify the extreme antiquity and authoritative character of Daṇḍanīti, the essence of which he incorporated in his system. We are therefore inclined to hold that it was with a deliberate purpose, and not merely out of mere forgetfulness of its human origin, that the fiction of divine creation of Daṇḍanīti was introduced into the Śāntiparvan.