Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity (Based on the Arthashastra of Kautilya), Vol. I c3.15

c3.15

The "rescue of learning" would be either a vain boast or would seem to favour the traditional Indian view, widely current among orthodox Hindu Pandits and scholars, that all the three works, viz. *Nyayabhashya*, *Kamasutra*, and *Arthasastra*, which So much about the fact of the political association of Kauṭilya with the Emperor Chandra Gupta. We shall now consider the evidence proving that the fact of Kauṭilya’s authorship of *Arthaśāstra* is well known in Sanskrit literature. The two principal sources of that evidence are (1) the *Nītisāra* of Kāmandaka and (2) the *Daśakumāracharita* of Daṇḍī, both of which accept the genuineness of the *Arthaśāstra* as the production of Chāṇakya. Kāmandaka, at the beginning of his *Nītisāra*, says: “Salutation unto the learned Viṣṇu Gupta, who raised the ambrosia of political science out of the vast ocean of the *Arthaśāstra*. As this science is very much liked by kings, I shall make a brief but clear abridgment of the treatise of that learned scholar who was a