A History of Hindu Political Theories from the Earliest Times to the End of the First Quarter of the Seventeenth Century A.D. c9.87

c9.87

If now in the light of the above survey, we consider the fashionable comparison between Kauṭilya and Machiavelli,[^asterisk] we think our answer must indicate some remarkable coincidences as well as contrasts. While Machiavelli occupies as the "first modern political philosopher" a unique position in European history,dagger Kauṭilya was preceded in Ancient India by a long line of teachers of the Arthaśāstra whose works he claims to have summarised in his own. The work of Kauṭilya embracing within its fold the branches of civil law and military science as well as that of public administration, had evidently a wider scope than the treatises of Machiavelli who confines his attention to the art of government alone. Within the limits common to both thinkers, however, the Italian covers a wider field, for he studies the conditions of republics as well as monarchies, while Kauṭilya's gaze is fixed on the problems of the monarchic State alone. On the other hand the empirical method of Machiavelli, supported as it is by frequent references to the history of classical antiquity, has some resemblance to the empiricism of Kauṭilya which is fortified by occasional references to the Indian traditional history. Turning from the scope and method to the subject-matter, we may perhaps draw a parallel between the heads of the