A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.50

c9.50

It is, above all, in his application of foreign policy that Kauṭilya discovers the fullest means for ensuring the interest of the State, and finds ample scope for the display of his peculiar genius. The author, it appears, has a just appreciation of the advantages of foreign policy, for he says in introducing the subject that the traditional sixfold policy is the source of enjoyment (śama) and effort (vyāyāma) which in their turn are the sources of the acquisition (yoga) and security (kṣema)§. In the same connexion he analyses what he considers to be the threefold status of a kingdom, namely, decline, stationary condition, and progress.|| Moreover, he mentions those factors which in his view determine the relative position of two kings, namely their possession, in a greater or a less or the same measure, of the threefold strength (śakti) and its threefold fruition (siddhi).¶