A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c8.s3.44

c8.s3.44

Such, then, is the skeleton outline of the science of Arthaśāstra. In order to understand its true nature, it is further necessary to consider what the authors with whom we are now concerned believe to be its relation to the sister sciences. An interesting sidelight is thrown upon this point by Kauṭilya's quotation of a short discussion relating to the list of the sciences (vidyās). It appears that the sciences were traditionally held to be four in number, namely, the sacred canon (trayī), philosophy (ānvīkṣakī), the art of government (daṇḍanīti), as well as agriculture, cattle-breeding, and trade (vârttâ). This division, which evidently gave due weight to the claims of secular as well as sacred learning, proved to be unacceptable to three of the radical schools preceding Kauṭilya. The school of Manu excluded philosophy, from the list of sciences on the ground that it was merely a branch of the Vedas. More sweeping is the criticism of the other two schools. The school of Brihaspati excluded, in addition to philosophy, the Vedas which it characteristically declared to be merely a pretext for a man versed in worldly affairs. Thus Daṇḍanīti and Vārttā alone, according to this prince of materialists, are entitled to rank as sciences.∗ This view would seem to mark the extreme swing of the pendulum from the position of the Dharmasūtras, in which rājadharma was held to be part and parcel of the canonical scheme of duties. But the tendency towards simplification of the list of sciences did not end with Brihaspati. The school of Uśanas (Śukra) took the last step, and proclaimed Daṇḍanīti to be the only science on the ground that the operations (ārambhāḥ) of all other sciences are fixed therein.† Politics, then, according to this ultra-political school, is the one master-science furnishing the key to all the rest.