History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v1.c6.s14.15.2

v1.c6.s14.15.2

The argument of Stein and Winternitz that in Megasthenes' account of India no great person named Cāṇakya or Kauṭilya appears and that the former's account of the condition of India does not tally with that presented by the Kauṭilīya is of very little weight. We have no means for finding out what proficiency Megasthenes had acquired in the languages of India so as to be able to hold conversation with all sorts and conditions of men. Besides it is well known that Megasthenes' writings have been handed down in a fragmentary state and that he often spins his own yarns. Megasthenes declares the Indians to be unacquainted with writing. But no Western scholar would now subsribe to the view that writing was unknown in India about 320 B. C. Dr. Jolly himself has to remark that the idealising tendency in Megasthenes greatly impairs the trustworthiness of his statements (p. 40, Introduction to Kauṭilīya). This question of the authenticity of the work is bound up with the question whether it can be the work of an individual author or whether it is the product of a school. Hillebrandt vehemently argues that it is the product of a school and Jacobi as vehemently repudiates that hypothesis. The great stumbling block according to many scholars in the way of regarding Kauṭilya as the author of the work is the fact that the views of Kauṭilya are cited by name about 80 times in the work itself almost always in opposition to the views of other teachers.