A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.34

c9.34

From the meagre record of political theory that has been presented above, let us turn to consider what forms in Kauṭilya the essence of his philosophy, we mean the branch relating specifically to the art of government. There is little reason to doubt that this is largely based upon the ideas of the older masters of the Arthaśāstra, although only such fragments of those ideas have survived as were quoted by Kauṭilya for the purpose of refutation. However that may be, we may, we think, consider this branch of our subject in its two natural divisions of the acquisition and the preservation of dominion, which