The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c14.57

c14.57

Hillebrandt ascribes the composition of the Arthaśāstra to a school of Kauṭalya’s disciples. Keith ascribes it to some follower of Kauṭalya. But Kauṭalya is really in line with Hindu tradition in introducing his name in his own work. It may be stated, in reply to Keith, that ācāryāḥ is only the customary honorific plural; that on p. 261 (Shamasastry’s edition) Kauṭalya distinguishes the views of Ācāryāḥ from those of Kauṭalya and Vātavyādhi; that on p. 320 the views of Ācāryāḥ are distinguished from those of Bhāradvāja. On p. 253, the criticism of Kauṭalya by Bhāradvāja and that of the latter again by Kauṭalya only brings together the opinion of two schools of thought. The fact seems to be that the Arthaśāstra, like the Dharmaśāstra, had several traditions and that Kauṭalya represented one, perhaps the most powerful, of them. In his text Kauṭalya quotes, it seems, from four schools and thirteen individual teachers (D. R. Bhandarkar, Carmichael Lectures, 1918, pp. 91–99). Of these Manu, Indra or Bāhudantīputra, Bṛhaspati, Śukra, Viśālākṣa, and Bhāradvāja are also mentioned in the Mahābhārata. Vātavyādhi is one of the names of Uddhava, the friend of Kṛṣṇa in the Purāṇas, specially in the Śrīmad Bhāgavata.