A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.32

c8.s3.32

forty-two times, much oftener than he quotes the other schools and teachers of the Arthaśāstra. Even if the two were independent personages, it may be argued that Kauṭilya had no occasion for mentioning Gauraśiras, since he only quotes the older authors when he has to cite a chain of discussion in which they figure or else refutes their views. Another ground on which Kauṭilya's silence about Gauraśiras may be explained without committing oneself to Dr. Bhandarkar's theory is that the latter author lived or at least came into prominence in the interval between the composition of Kauṭilya's work and that of the Sāntiparvan. For it is only a gratuitous assumption, running counter to the generally accepted view on this point, to state that the composition of the Sāntiparvan was prior to that of the Kauṭilīya. The third argument involves a *petitio principii*, since it takes for granted apparently on the strength of the second argument that the Sāntiparvan was composed earlier than the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya. Moreover, it fails to give the true explanation of Brahmā's creation of the science of Daṇḍanīti. This view of the origin of the science is indeed not peculiar to the Mahābhārata. Vātsyāyana, in the beginning of his Kāmasūtra, describes how Prajāpati (Brahmā) created the people and recited to them a work of 100,000 chapters showing the way towards the acquisition of virtue, wealth, and desire. Afterwards the three parts relating to these ends were separated respectively by Manu, Brihaspati, and Nandin. A closer approximation to the story of the Mahābhārata occurs in the late mediæval work called the Śukranītisāra. According to its author (I. 2-4), the Self-existent One (Brahmā) recited the Nītiśāstra consisting of 100 lacs of verses for the good of the world, and afterwards abstracts of this work were prepared by Vasiṣṭha, Śukra and others in the interests of kings and other persons whose tenure of existence was limited. Nevertheless it is difficult to subscribe to the view that the ascription of divine origin to Daṇḍanīti in the Sāntiparvan was merely due to its hoary antiquity. That the canonical author was aware of the human origin of the science is evident from an alternative story of its creation which is thus summarised by Kauṭilya writes in the concluding chapter of his work, “ ‘Artha’ is the means of subsistence (vritti) of men ; it is, in other words, the earth which is filled with men. Arthaśāstra is the science (śāstra) (which deals with) the mode of acquisition and protection of that (earth).” ∗ This definition is applied by Kauṭilya to the early Arthaśāstra works in his very opening lines where he describes the plan of his own treatise. He writes, “This single Arthaśāstra has been prepared by summarising nearly all the Arthaśāstra works that were written by the early masters with regard to the acquisition and protection of the earth.” The second line of argument is concerned with the interpretation of the parallel concept of Daṇḍanīti. Kauṭilya writes in one place, “Daṇḍanīti is the means of acquiring what is not gained, protecting what is gained, increasing what is protected and bestowing the surplus upon the deserving.”¹ It is evident that this is but an amplification of the category of acquisition and protection mentioned in the foregoing definition.² Now both the Manusamhitā and the Mahābhārata mention the four functions stated by Kauṭilya in such a way as to make them the essence of the king’s occupation.³