[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928) › c14.51 # The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.51 The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.51 - **Language:** English ### [c14.51](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c14.51) Contemporaneously with the earliest Smritis arose another class of writings, called Arthaśāstras, treatises on welfare or profit, which treat of politics and economics more or less independently of religion. The Arthaśāstra, in fact, is something like the secular counterpart of the Dharmaśāstra, just as the Kāmaśāstra is the erotic counterpart of it. All the three seem to have arisen at pretty much the same epoch and might have been the result of the same intellectual movement of specialisation. The Mahābhārata professes to quote from several teachers who are mentioned in Kauṭalya and may be supposed to be his forerunners. But the oldest extant work of its kind is the Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, discovered in Southern India less than a generation ago. Its discoverer and first editor, Mr. Shamasastry, accepted and argued for the age-long tradition of its authorship by Cāṇakya, or - [Previous: c14.50](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c14.50) - [Next: c14.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c14.52) - [Up: c14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c14) ## Linked texts (1) - [Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.kautilya) — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c14.51](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.prasad-1928.c14.51) · Pramāṇa