Theory of Government in Ancient India (Post-Vedic) c8.11

c8.11

About the eighth century Kāmandaka declared that his master Kautalya was the founder of a new science, that of politics. There is an element of justice in the claim in so far as Kautalya reorganised the science. But he himself proclaimed, freely and frankly, in his first sentence, that his work was "a compendium of almost all the Arthaśāstrās, which in view of acquisition and maintenance of earth, have been composed by ancient teachers."¹ From internal evidence it is clear that Kautalya was familiar with the extensive range of Dharmaśāstra literature. What the Arthaśāstra school did was very largely to secularise politics.