A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.39

c8.s3.39

It would appear from the above that Arthaśāstra was essentially the Art of Government in the widest sense of the term.† But although such was the strict definition of the science, it tended almost from the first to embrace a mass of abstract speculation within its orbit. The extracts cited by Kauṭilya show that the discussion of the concrete problems of administration led the early teachers of Arthaśāstra to enquire into the essential nature of the State institutions. The Mahābhārata, above all, reproduces numerous extracts from the early Arthaśāstra authors, involving, as we shall presently see, the treatment of such abstract questions as the nature of the king's office and the mutual relations of the sovereign and his subjects.