A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.81

c9.81

It would seem from the above that morality and to a less extent religion had no place in Kauṭilya’s politics. Nevertheless there are some passages in the Arthaśāstra which exhibit the author as deliberately parting company with the extreme exponents, among his predecessors, of an immoral statecraft. Even in these cases, however, we feel that the author is impressed not with the inherent worth of morality, but with the belief that honesty is the best policy. Thus in his chapter relating to the safeguarding of the princes he indignantly and emphatically rejects two extreme views which he quotes. The first is that of Vātavyādhi who advised that the princes might be lured to sensual indulgence, for in that case they would never hate their father. “This,” Kauṭilya retorts, “is death in life. Like a piece of wood eaten by worms, the royal family in which the princes are lacking in discipline perishes as soon as it is touched.” With this rebuke he proceeds to mention what steps, according to him, the king should take for ensuring the prince’s safe birth and training in discipline. The second view criticised by Kauṭilya is that of the Ambhīyas who advised that while one spy should tempt the prince, another should restrain him. Kauṭilya solemnly replies in language indicating a true insight into the principles of child-training, “(It is) a great sin to excite an unawakened (mind), for a fresh object sucks whatever class of things it is smeared with,” and he goes on to recommend that the prince should be instructed in virtue and wealth, not in their opposites.* In another passage, rejecting a characteristic suggestion of Bhāradvāja, namely that the minister (amātya) should usurp the vacant throne on the death of his master, Kauṭilya argues that this would be an act causing provocation to the people, as well as very unrighteous and uncertain. Hence he recommends that the minister should set up a prince who is possessed of self-control.[^asterisk] In a third passage Kauṭilya, rejecting the opinion of one of his unnamed predecessors, declares that a peace or alliance depending merely upon promise or upon oath is immutable in this world and in the next.dagger