Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity (Based on the Arthashastra of Kautilya), Vol. I c3.90

c3.90

We have now considered the various arguments which may be advanced to support the authenticity of the *Arthaśāstra* as the production of Kauṭilya, the Minister of Chandra Gupta. Its age thus ascertained, it is difficult to overestimate its importance for the history of culture, and especially Indian culture. As an exposition of an ancient polity it takes its place by the side of the other ancient compilations such as the Babylonish Code of Hammurabi and the works on Greek politics such as those of Aristotle and Plato. The Code of Hammurabi, however, only treats of practical regulations appropriate to a mercantile civilization, which are not parts of any system of polity, while both Aristotle's *Politics* and Plato's *Republic* go to the other extreme of treating only of the theory of the State and Constitution. In the *Arthaśāstra* we find a combination of theory and practice, principles of government, as well as administrative details and regulations, treated with a touch of refreshing realism which is born only of a living experience of actual problems and contact with facts. The system of polity as revealed in the *Arthaśāstra* is complete in all aspects and details, and exhibits those features which are characteristic of India. Agriculture and commerce, arts and crafts for which India is ever noted, receive their due treatment and emphasis in the book; forests and mines, irrigation and famine, land revenue, census, central and municipal government, cattle and livestock, are the eternal topics of Indian administration, conditioned, as every government is, by its natural and historical environment. And when we find that all these familiar problems have been treated in the *Arthaśāstra*—problems which are still exercising the British Government of India at the present day—we cannot but discover the operation of an evolutionary process which is ultimately governing the development of Indian administration through Hindu, Mahomedan and modern times.