Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity (Based on the Arthashastra of Kautilya), Vol. I c3.63

c3.63

When applied to learning, it shows Kauṭilya’s impatience of the narrowness and shallowness of his predecessors, which irritated him into activity, and is also an expression of the contempt of the Statesman for the Professor—of which Bismarck, for instance, made no concealment—a contempt which manifests itself throughout the book in the frequent references to the *Âchâryyas* and their doctrinairisms and the refutation of their teachings, and also in the necessity he felt for treatment of important topics omitted by previous masters but indispensable in a useful hand-book of Politics.