A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.37

c9.37

With all his anxious care to fit the prince by education and discipline for the discharge of his office, Kauṭilya insists that the king should rule with the help of the State officials (amātyas) and consult the ministers (mantrins). In one of his early chapters he specifies the qualifications of the amātyas—a point that was already discussed by the early masters—and he mentions four tests (namely, those of fear virtue wealth and love) by which the fitness of the amātyas is to be detected. Kauṭilya discovers the necessity of the Civil Service in the very nature of government, and he fortifies his conclusion by a homely analogy, for he writes, “Sovereignty can be carried on only with assistance. A single wheel does not move ; hence the king shall employ the ministers and hear their advice.”† In the same connexion Kauṭilya analyses the king’s function as being of a threefold nature, namely the visible, the invisible and the inferential, and he declares the amatya's business to consist in carrying out the invisible work.‡ In a later chapter Kauṭilya considers the ways and means of ensuring proper deliberation,—here again he merely continues a discussion started by the early teachers,—and he mentions what, according to him, should be the composition of the council of ministers. It is noticeable in this connection that Kauṭilya exhibits a just appreciation of the function of deliberation by saying at the outset that all undertakings depend upon it.∗