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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11: Chapter VIII. The Kauṭalya Question

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11

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English

Contents

Chapter VIII. The Kauṭalya Question

Kauṭalīya Arthaśāstra

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The first edition of the present work was prepared and published (1910-14) when the Kauṭalya question appeared to be rather simple. But today in 1936, i.e., over thirty years since the first notice of the *Arthaśāstra* in 1905 the question is not yet closed. As the subject is likely to be no less important in the present century than were, say, the Plato question and the *Mahābhārata* question in the last the principal problems and viewpoints bearing on the subject are being dealt with chronologically in the following sections. A certain amount of repetition is unfortunately inevitable. My own position is being indicated not only sometimes in connection with those of others but also separately as the occasions arise.¹

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¹ Text and Commentaries :—
1. The text was edited and published for the first time by R. Shamasastry in 1909 (Mysore). The second edition of the text appeared in 1919.
2. Sorabji Taraporewalla's *Some Notes on the Adhyakṣa Prachāra Book II. of the Kauṭilīyam-Arthaśāstram* prepared under Jolly at Würzburg (Germany) was published at Allahabad in 1914.
3. Jolly and Schmidt's edition was published in two volumes during 1923-24 (Lahore). The Sanskrit commentary *Nyāyachandrikā* belongs to Vol. II. The Vol. I. published in 1923 contains Jolly's introduction in English on the Kauṭalya question.
4. The edition of Ganapati Sastri was published in 1924-25 (Trivandrum). This edition contains a Sanskrit commentary written by the editor himself.

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The Kauṭalya question or the problem of the authenticity of the *Arthaśāstra* involves two main problems :

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1. The question of the date or the age. The Indian tradition says that the *Arthaśāstra* is a Maurya work. The problem consists in examining this tradition about the alleged Maurya milieu of the *Arthaśāstra* materials or contents.

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2. The question of the authorship. The Indian tradition says that Kauṭalya, the minister of Chandragupta Maurya, is the author of the *Arthaśāstra*. The problem consists in examining

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i. whether it is the work of a single individual or several combined in a school or otherwise,
ii. whether the person who wrote the book is identical with the minister of Chandragupta Maurya.

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On both these questions the opinions are as varied as possible. The evolution of indology in Kauṭalya scholarship from 1905 until today is being briefly surveyed in the following pages.

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⁵ Kashi Prasad Jayaswal and A. Banerji-Sastri's edition of Bhattasvamin's Commentary on Book II. chs. VIII-XXXVI of the *Arthaśāstra* was published in the *Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society* (Patna) Vols. XI and XII (1927) Bhattasvamin's Commentary on the *Arthaśāstra* is incomplete. It deals only with book II, and with chapters from viii to xxxvi only.

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Shamasastry, 1905

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It is with the publication of R. Shamasastry's paper on "Chāṇakya's Land and Revenue Policy (fourth century B.C.)" in the *Indian Antiquary* (Bombay) of January 1905 (pp. 5-6) that modern scholarship began to take interest in the politics, economics and sociology of Kauṭalya. In the introduction to that paper Shamasastry described the *Arthaśāstra* as the "science of economics" and pointed out that the author was "known by the name Kauṭalya." And he observed as follows :

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"That Kauṭalya and Viṣṇugupta are other names by which Chāṇakya is known is a fact with which Oriental scholars are too familiar to doubt, and that Chāṇakya was the historical personage who put an end to the power of Nanda is a fact which is mentioned in a number of Sanskrit works." The *Viṣṇupurāṇa* (Wilson, Book IV. ch. xxiv, p. 186), Hemachandra's *Sthavirapallīcharita* or "Lives of Jaina Patriarchs", and the *Nandisūtra*, a Jaina religious work in the Prakritic language were cited by him in evidence, and these he considered to be documents of the period between the first and the second centuries A.C. And he considered these works to be "fairly reliable data for assuming that Chāṇakya lived as minister of Chandragupta in the fourth century B.C.."

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So much for the date. In regard to the authenticity of the *Arthaśāstra* Shamasastry referred to the subsequently oft-quoted passage in Dandin's *Daśakumāracharita* (II. viii) as well as Kāmandaka's glorification of Viṣṇugupta at the commencement of his *Nītisāra*. He considered the *Kāmandakīnīti* to be "earlier than the fourth century A.C." In addition he drew attention to the *Panchatantra* (ch, I) and Somadeva's *Nītivākyāmrita* as alluding to the *Kauṭalīya Arthaśāstra*.

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The paper was published in three numbers, January, March and May. It was mainly in the form of translation¹ of passages bearing on the following topics:

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¹ These preliminary translations were later revised before publication in book form.

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I. Land: (1) political divisions, (2) distribution of land, (3) concessions to cultivators, (4) remissions of taxes on land, (5) village rules, (6) land sales.

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II. Revenue: (1) sources of revenue, (2) collection of revenue, (3) rates of toll, (4) weights and measures, (5) municipalities, (6) jails, (7) currency, (8) price of grain, (9) premia on exchange, (10) passports, (11) excise, (12) slaughter house, (13) oil, (14) butter, (15) salt, (16) goldsmiths, (17) commerce, (18) taxes on the sale of commodities, (19) sale of imported commodities, (20) courtesans, (21) gambling, (22) buildings, (23) artists, (24) religious institutions, (25) gate-dues, (26) special tax on Bāhirikas, (27) country revenue, (28) produce from crown lands, (29) merchants in country places, (30) superintendent of ferries, (31) rates of boat hire, (32) mines, (33) gardens, (34) forests, (35) cattle, (36) special taxes, (37) principle of revenue collection.

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The contents of the *Arthaśāstra* were given as follows:

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| Book I. | Training, Discipline and Personal Safety of Kings and their Ministers. |
| ,, II. | Departments of State. |
| III. & IV. | Administration of Civil and Criminal Law. |

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Book. V. Duties of Government servants towards the King and *vice versa*. ,, VI. The Rise and Progress of States. ,, VII. The Six-fold Diplomacy or Policy of Kings. ,, VIII. The Vices to which kings are liable. IX-XIII. Military Matters. ,, XIV. Measures calculated to secure Peace and Plenty of States. ,, XV. The Plan of the *Arthaśāstra*.

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It was pointed out by Shamasastry that “the *Arthaśāstra* was, in its author’s own words, divided into fifteen books containing on the whole 150 chapters, which in 6,000 *granthas* (32 syllables = 1 *grantha*) deal with 180 themes.”

Smith, 1908

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The *Arthaśāstra* was naturally unknown in the first edition (1904) of Vincent Smith’s *Early History of India* (Oxford). The Maurya institutions in this work were described chiefly or rather exclusively on the strength of the *Indika* of Megasthenes. In the second edition (1908, pp. 134-136) Smith preserved the material of the first but added three or four footnotes inviting attention to Shamasastry’s paper in the *Indian Antiquary* (1905) as well as translation appearing in the *Mysore Review* since 1907. Besides, he felt that the Greek descriptions had remained “practically uncorroborated when the first edition was published.” So he made it a point to supplement his old account of 1904 with passages from the *Arthaśāstra* in order to throw “much additional light on the matters briefly treated by Megasthenes and his fellow authors.”

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At this point Smith's attitude to Kauṭalya may be seen from the following extract. "Whoever its author may have been," says he, "that curious work undoubtedly is proved by both external and internal evidence to be of early date. The substance of the precepts and regulations has an extremely archaic aspect, and in my judgment, the polity described is mainly that of the Maurya age. The treatise in fact may be read as a commentary on, and exposition of the notes recorded by the Greek observers." He used it really as something by which the Greek accounts could be corroborated. He was not touched by the Megasthenes *vs.* Kauṭalya problem.

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The *Kauṭalīya Arthaśāstra* was described by Smith as "Chāṇakya's Art of Government." It was also treated as a work on the "principles and methods of government in ancient India." He considered many of the rules to be puerile or merely theoretical." "On the whole," the document was appraised as "evidently" a "presentation of the facts of actual practice made in the peculiar literary form affected by the Hindu writers of text-books."

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According to Smith, the suggestions of Kauṭalya concerning the "methods by which a necessitous monarch might extort money were of Machiavellian wickedness."

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The third edition was published in 1914. But for the present it is necessary to observe that it was the second edition that influenced indology not only in India but also in Germany.

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Hillebrandt, 1908

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In 1908 (July 16) lecturing at the Orientalisch-Sprachwissenschaftliche Section of the Sächsische Gesellschaft für Vaterländische Culture (Breslau) on the subject entitled "*Ueber das Kauṭilīyaśastra und Verwandtes*"¹ (On the Kauṭilīyaśastra and Allied Topics) Alfred Hillebrandt began as follows: "At the head of Indian politics stands Chāṇakya also called Viṣṇugupta with the patronymic title Kauṭilya or Kauṭalya, a descendant of Kauṭala."

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¹ The lecture is to be found in the 86th *Jahresbericht* (Annual Report) of the Gesellschaft.

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It is interesting to observe *en passant* that the name Kauṭalya was known in Germany already in 1908 (cf. Shamasastry 1905). According to Hillebrandt, Kauṭalya's name was first used by Wilson in 1883 in connection with a citation from the *Daśakumāracharita* where it is said that Kauṭilya composed a *Daṇḍanīti* in 600 *ślokas* for the Mauryas. The annihilation of the Nanda Dynasty and the elevation of Chandragupta to the throne were remembered as Chāṇakya's achievements for a long time in the Indian tradition. *Panchatantra* (III. v. 138, V, v, 47), *Hitopadeśa* (III, 58), *Kāmandakī Nīti* (I. i, 4), *Viṣṇu-Purāṇa* (IV. 24), *Kathāsaritsāgara* (V. 108) and Hemachandra's *Pariśiṣṭa parvan* (VIII. 193) were cited by Hillebrandt as evidences of the Kauṭalyan tradition in Hindu thought.

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"The entire Indian tradition left no room for doubt as to the existence of a textbook by Kauṭilya," said Hillebrandt; "A *darśana* of politics is mentioned in the *Kāmandakī* (I. 7) and the commentary calls it *Kauṭalyabhāṣya*. In *Kādambarī* also (ed. Peterson, p. 109, 4) the expression *Kauṭilyaśāstra* is found."

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In modern times the existence of a "work at least partly in prose on a now lost *Śāstra*" about *Rājanīti* (politics) was first suspected by Zachariae in 1883 in his *Beiträge zur Indischen Lexikographie* (p. 43), said Hillebrandt. Quotations from Kauṭilya (Chāṇakya) had been collected by Aufrecht, Zachariae, and himself.

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He said further: "The existence of a 'book' *Kauṭilyaśāstram* was also considered by Weber to be very probable. Then came the English translation of a part of the text by Shamasastry in the *Indian Antiquary* of Bombay (1905). The second edition of Smith's *Early History of India* (1908) referred to Shamasastry's English translation in the *Mysore Review* (1907)." But at the time of the lecture the English translation was, as he reported, not known to Hillebrandt.

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Hillebrandt was about this time editing the *Mudrārākṣasa* and interesting himself in Hindu *nītiśāstra* with a view to writing the introduction. Julius Jolly referred him to the two of his own manuscripts of the *Kauṭalya* or *Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra* preserved in the State Library of Munich. With the examination of these two manuscripts may be said to commence Kauṭalyalogy or the study of the authenticity of Kauṭalya and the entire Kauṭalya-complex.

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In the same lecture at Breslau Hillebrandt described his method as follows: "If we wish to test whether this work corresponds to the text which is described as Kauṭilīya in our citations, it appears to me necessary," said he, "that we should examine as to whether those passages are to be found in these manuscripts or not." The testing was done by him with regard to 50 passages (18 from Aufrecht, 7 from Zachariae, 23 from the commentary on the *Kāmandakī*, 2 from Mallinātha's commentary on the *Raghuvamśa*).

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Hillebrandt's conclusion was thus worded; "Of these 50 passages 40 can be found in the manuscript, almost entirely word for word, in part with variants. I cannot say whether the remaining ten have been overlooked by me or perhaps may be found in other texts or, may be, were wrongly ascribed to Kauṭilya. But this large number is enough, I believe, for the demonstration, and it might accordingly be accepted that our manuscripts actually contain the lost textbook of Kauṭilya. With this work, then, the study of Indian *Nīti* is placed on a strong foundation. Zachariae is right in his guess about the existence of such a work."

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The "authenticity" of the *Arthaśāstra* was thereby established. Hillebrandt discussed also its age. He quoted the opinion of Hertel to the effect that the *Urpanchatantra* (original *Panchatantra*) was probably composed in Chāṇakya's life time, that "wooden temples" were built in those days, that Chāṇakya was described with the honorific title of *Mahat* (high souled or great) even before the gods. In *Mudrārākṣasa* also Chāṇakya's reputation was equally if not more held in honour.

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The *Kāmandakīnīti* devoted five verses to the glorification of Kauṭalya, the *guru* of the author. "In any case the age of the *Panchatantra* determines," said Hillebrandt, "a correspondingly higher age for the *Arthaśāstra*." He suggested that as soon as the text were available in print a comparison with the data of Megasthenes would not be uninteresting. Finally, be it observed that Hillebrandt was even then convinced that the work was the product of Kauṭalya's school (*entstammt nur seiner Schule*) and that Kauṭalya was not the author throughout. But he did not make a definite pronouncement about the date or the age.

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Hillebrandt’s position should appear to be strong and reasonable so far as the plural authorship of the *Arthaśāstra* is concerned.

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Hillebrandt invited attention to certain peculiar features of the text.

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The references to Kauṭalya are sometimes in the form of posing his views as against those of other named professors of *nīti*. Once in a while direct quotations from Kauṭalya are introduced. On other occasions the *āchāryas* are named in a general manner in order to bring into relief Kauṭalya’s opinions quoted as such.

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These features would arouse suspicion in anybody’s mind against the Kauṭalyan authorship of the *Kauṭalīya Arthaśāstra*. The suspicion of Hillebrandt cannot be explained away especially as to whether it was a Maurya work.

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It appeared to him, besides, that the manuscript was not complete.

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The lecture was published separately also as a brochure and contained two more papers: (1) “*Nīti und Mudrārākṣasa*” and (2) “*Viśākhadatta.*” The brochure contains valuable material such as can be used for a history of Hindu political literature. We have given a somewhat extensive summary of Hillebrandt’s lecture in almost his own words² because the Kauṭalya tradition from the earliest times on has been presented by him in a clear manner.

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² In the foregoing summary even when quotation marks have been used a literal translation has not been attempted.

Hertel, 1910-14

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Like the *Mudrārākṣasa*, the *Panchatantra* also had been popular with German indologists in connection with *Nīti* philosophy. The bearings of the *Panchatantra* on the Kauṭalya question were considered to be very substantial and even decisive. A leading authority on the *Panchatantra*, Hertel, was therefore naturally interested in the *Arthaśāstra*. His "Literarisches aus dem Kauṭilīyaśāstra" (Literary Data from the Kauṭilya) was published in the *Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes*, vol. XXIV of Vienna in 1910.

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The *Tantrākhyāyika* uses the *Arthaśāstra* very often. According to Hertel the latter must be older than 200 B.C., the date assigned by him to the former. It should be observed, however, that, as usual in regard to other works, the suggested date for the *Tantrākhyāyika* is open to question.

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His subsequent publication, *Das Panchatantra, seine Geschichte und seine Verbreitung* (*The Panchatantra, Its History and Propagation*), published in 1914, threw some fresh lights on the problems of the *Arthaśāstra*. Incidentally it may be observed that Zachariae whose guess in 1883 about the possible existence of a "book" (partly in prose) on the *Arthaśāstra* was verified by the discovery in 1905 published "Die Weisheitssprüche des Sanaq bei al-Torṭusī" (The Wise Sayings of Sanaq to Al-Torṭusī) in the *W.Z.K.M.* of Vienna in 1914 and dealt likewise with the Kauṭalya question. Here Sanaq=Chāṇakya.

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In his translation of *Tantrākhyāyika* Hertel agreed with Hillebrandt that the *Arthaśāstra* was worked upon and expanded in subsequent times. But all the same, he believed that the text as well as the commentary certainly came from Chāṇakya."

Mookerji-Law-Jayaswal-Sarkar, 1910-14

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It was in connection with the work at the National Council of Education, Bengal, established during 1905-06 as an expression and embodiment of the national awakening known as the *Swadeshi Movement* that the present author's studies in Hindu culture as well as English translation of the *Śukranīti* were undertaken in 1907. Parts of this translation as well as the *Positive Background of Hindu Sociology* (first edition) were being prepared and published off and on in the journals of Calcutta, Allahabad, Madras and Dacca during 1911-13.

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These studies, intimately associated as they were with the work of Baman Das Basu of the Panini Office (Allahabad), editor of *The Sacred Books of the Hindus Series* and part-author of *Indian Medicinal Plants*, were carried on in the main in an atmosphere of co-operative research at Calcutta.¹ To this research-complex belonged also Radhakumud Mookerji's studies in Hindu shipping and the geographical unity of India under the inspiration of Satis Chandra Mukerjee of the Dawn Society (1903-06) and the National Council of Education, as well as Narendra Nath Law's investigations into the *Arthaśāstra* and Kashi Prasad Jayaswal's papers on Hindu coronation rituals and other aspects of Hindu polity (1911-13). That was the atmosphere of what may be described as an almost homogeneous and undifferentiated, although entirely informal, "school" of Hindu culture and social sciences at Calcutta. So far as the Kauṭalya question was concerned, that "school", like Shamasastry, considered the Indian tradition as but verified by the discovery of the *Arthaśāstra*.

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¹ The dates of the first publication in *book-form* are given below :
1. R. K. Mookerji : *History of Indian Shipping and Maritime Activity* (London 1911).
2. N. N. Law : *Studies in Ancient Hindu Polity based on the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya with an* Introduction by Mookerji on the Authenticity of Kauṭilya (London 1914).
3. B. K. Sarkar : : *Śukranīti* (Allahabad 1914), with Index by N. N. Law.
4. B. K. Sarkar : : *The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology* Vol. I. (Non-Political, Allahabad 1914). 5 R. K. Mookerji : *The Fundamental Unity of India* (London 1914).
6. K. P. Jayaswal : *Hindu Polity* (Calcutta 1924). By the time of its publication the "book" had widely moved away from the author's ideas of the 1910-14 period.

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And this tendency of that pre-war Calcutta School was fortified by Smith's treatment of the problem because in the second edition of his *Early History of India* (Oxford 1908, pp. 134-136) he actually supplemented his description of the Maurya institutions based on Megasthenes's *Indika* with data from the *Arthaśāstra*.

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During this period Shamasastry's work on the *Arthaśāstra* was being followed with keen interest at the "Calcutta School." In addition to his first paper in the *Indian Antiquary* (1905) and translation of Books I-IV. in the *Mysore Review* (1906-08) the following parts (in English) furnished the material for investigation:

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1. *Chāṇakya's Arthaśāstra or Science of Politics*, Books I and II. (Mysore 1908?), a brochure.
2. *The Arthaśāstra of Chāṇakya or Science of Politics*, Books III and IV. (Mysore 1908?), a brochure.
These two were available at the same time as articles in the *Mysore Review*, also, as indicated above.

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3. *The Arthaśāstra of Chāṇakya*, Books V-VII in the *Indian Antiquary* (1909-10).

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The entire text, edited by Shamasastry, was also available in 1909 (Mysore).

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The personal contact with Hermann Jacobi, the German champion of the Indian tradition, at Calcutta during 1911-12 had likewise some influence on the "School."

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The complications of the Kauṭalya question remained, therefore, untouched in the first edition of the present work. The following paragraphs are being reproduced from that edition:

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"There is no difficulty about the *Arthaśāstra* of Chāṇakya, or Kauṭilya, the Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, who for the first time in Indian history conceived and executed the plan of a vast Empire, the limits of which it has not been possible for any Indian monarch to reach or exceed.

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'Like Abul Fazl's *Ayeen Akbari*, the *Arthaśāstra* may be looked upon as the *Imperial Gazetteer of India* in one of the most remarkable periods of Indian culture-history. The chapters of this monumental document are devoted exclusively to a description of the multifarious incidents of political life under Chandragupta's government as well as economic and financial topics, e.g. the working of the mines, the opening of irrigation works, the establishment of factories; the maintenance of preserves and grazing grounds, of high ways of commerce, waterways, land-routes, and other facilities for communication; the establishment of markets and stores, the construction of embankments, dams and bridges, the planting of fruit and flower trees, of medicinal plants

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and herbs (i.e. the establishment of Āyurvedic and pharmaceutical gardens); protection of the disabled, the helpless and the infirm, and also of beasts &c; famines, census, central and municipal government; livestock; and many other social, juristic and economic institutions."

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"In the Introduction to Law's *Hindu Polity* Mookerji has summarised the arguments which may be advanced in support of the traditional and widely current view that the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya is the work of Chāṇakya the minister of Chandragupta and therefore belongs to the 4th century B.C. The writer has proved from both external and internal evidences—

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1. That the political connection of Kauṭilya with Chandragupta as his Finance Minister is a fact and not a myth.
2. That the *Arthaśāstra* attributed to Kauṭilya is a genuine work of antiquity and not a traditionally handed down fable.
3. That the work is the production of an individual author and not of a school, as is frequently the case with Indian treatises."

Jacobi, 1911-12

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In order to vindicate the Indian tradition that the *Arthaśāstra* is the work of Kauṭalya, the "famous minister of Chandragupta," Hermann Jacobi read a paper entitled *Ueber die Echtheit des Kauṭilīya* at the Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften (K.P.A.W.), Berlin, in 1912 (July 18).¹

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¹ See the *Sitzungsberichte* of this Academy 1912, pp. 833-834, 836, 848-849. This is available in English transl. (by V. S. Sukthankar) in the *Indian Antiquary* (Bombay) for June-July 1918.

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The very first item in Jacobi's paper deals with the expressions *iti Kauṭilyah* and *neti Kauṭilyah*. He speaks of the 72 cases² of such reference to Kauṭilya himself in the third person in the body of the *Arthaśāstra*. In 1908 Hillebrandt had raised the suspicion against the unitary authorship attributed to Kauṭalya. That position is challenged by Jacobi.

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² *S.K.P.A.W.* pp. 832, 837.

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First, he quotes the view expressed in Shamasastry's introduction to the text (1909) as to the alleged usual practice of ancient Indian authors.

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Jacobi's own argument is as follows: The *Arthaśāstra* mentions authorities 114 times. It is unthinkable, says he, that the opponents of Kauṭalya should have been called *āchāryas* by the school to whom Kauṭalya was the only *āchārya*. On the other hand, the very fact that disagreements are so often referred to is alleged to indicate the authorship by an individual of extremely critical tendency. It is clear, however, that Jacobi did not present a front attack to the problem involved in *iti Kauṭilyah*.

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Hillebrandt's position that the *Arthaśāstra* was the work of Kauṭalya's school and not of Kauṭalya himself was challenged by Jacobi. According to Jacobi it is hardly thinkable that Kauṭalya should have been the "founder of an 'academic school'" (*Gründer einer Gelehrtenschule*). He is prepared to believe that the Imperial Chancellor Kauṭalya "made a school," as one may say about Bismarck, "among the statesmen and diplomats" of his time. But it is difficult to believe that Kauṭalya should have established a "school for scholars."

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Jacobi cannot conceive the “Indian Bismarck” to have functioned like an “ordinary Paṇḍit” as a teacher of *Arthaśāstra* to the pupils around him. On the contrary, it fits in well with the character of a “great statesman” and a ruler of the state, says Jacobi, that just as Frederick the Great did, Kauṭalya should have dealt with his life’s profession or a part of it in a theoretical manner. If, then, there were a school it could have come into existence not from Kauṭalya the person but from his book. In Jacobi’s analysis it is the school that owed its existence to the book and not the book to the school. In this instance the “school”, said he, is to be understood in two senses : (1) as a series of teachers and pupils and (2) the entire body of adherents to the Kauṭalyan doctrines.

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Jacobi was also convinced that the book as the work of an individual did not suffer from interpolation to which as a rule works of a school are subject. And since the number of chapters along with the topics discussed was indicated by the author himself the text could not be considerably expanded by subsequent copyists. As to whether curtailments were effected would have to be ascertained by a critical examination of the text, said he.

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On the Kauṭalya-complex Jacobi had another, previous paper. His lecture in 1911 at the K.P.A.W. (Berlin)³ was entitled *Kultur—Sprach—und Literarhistorisches aus dem Kauṭilīya* and dealt with the cultural, linguistic and literary-historical data of the *Arthaśāstra*. There, among other things, he pointed out the discrepancies between the *Arthaśāstra* and the *Kāmandakī*. It is clear according to him that although Kauṭalya has been honoured as the *guru* by the author of the *Kāmandakī* (II. 6), the latter derived his materials from other authorities as well. The *Kāmandakī nīti* is based not on Kauṭalya alone but on *rājavidyā-vidām matam*, i.e., the doctrines of those versed in the science of kings. Thus considered, the existence of a special school alleged to have been established by Kauṭalya is considered by Jacobi to be very questionable.

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³ *Sitzungsberichte der Königlichen Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften* (Berlin) 1911, p. 642. This is available in English transl. (by N. P. Utgikar) in the *Indian Antiquary* (Bombay 1924).

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To this position of Jacobi's a reply was presented by Hillebrandt in “Zu Kauṭilya” published in the *Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft* (Leipzig 1915) where the latter sought to maintain his original thesis.

Jolly, 1911-16

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In 1911 Julius Jolly reported on the contents of the *Arthaśāstra* at the first session of the Internationale Vereinigung für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft (International Union for Comparative Jurisprudence) which was held at Heidelberg. The paper was published at Berlin in 1912 in the *Proceedings* of this Session, under the title “Ein altindisches Lehrbuch der Politik” (An Old Indian Textbook of Politics). His “Lexikalisches aus dem Kauṭilya” (Dictionary material from the K.) appeared in the *Indo-Germanische Forschungen* vol. xxxi of 1912. During this period Jolly entertained no doubts about the authenticity and antiquity.

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As author of *Recht und Sitte* (Strasburg 1896), Jolly was specially interested in the laws and morals as well as manners and customs, in one word, the *mores*, as embodied in the *Arthaśāstra*. In the *Zeitschrift der* *Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft* (Leipzig) for 1913 he had a paper entitled *Arthaśāstra und Dharmaśāstra*. In 1914 his pupil Sorabji Taraporewalla's edition of Book II. of the *Arthaśāstra* with notes was published at Allahabad. Jolly's collection of parallel passages from the two sides was being published in the *Z.D.M.G.* during 1914-15 under the title of "Kollektaneen zum Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra." In one of these papers Jolly referred to the following passage in the *Daśakumāracharita* (chapter VIII): *Iyam* (Daṇḍanītih) *idānīm āchārya Viṣṇuguptena Mauryārthe ṣaḍbhih ślokasahasraih samkṣiptā*, This science of politics was "*idānīm*" (recently?) abridged by Prof. Viṣṇugupta into 6000 *ślokas* for the use of the Maurya or Mauryas. On the strength of the word *idānīm* Jolly considered the *Arthaśāstra* to be not much older than the *Daśakumāracharita* (seventh century A.C.). The position was challenged by Jacobi in the same journal for 1914 in the paper "Ist das Daśakumāracharita gleichzeitig mit dem Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra? (Is the D. of the same age as the A?). Jolly's "Textkritische Bemerkungen zum Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra" was published in the *Z.D.M.G.* during 1916-17.

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In 1916 the chapters of the *Arthaśāstra* dealing incidentally with technological (chemical, medicinal and toxicological) matters were examined by Jolly in the paper on "Zur Datierungsfrage" (the Question of Dating) published in the *Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zur Göttingen*. Jolly's previous work on Hindu medicine also throws light on the question. The results of these researches were later made use of by Otto Stein in *Megasthenes und Kauṭilya* (Vienna 1922. pp. 61-63), by Hillebrandt in *Altindische Politik* (Jena 1923 p. 4), by Winternitz in his paper on "Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra" in the *Calcutta Review* (April 1924) and by Keith in *A History of Sanskrit Literature* (Oxford 1928, p. 460). These ideas were likewise summarized by Jolly in the introduction to his and Schmidt's edition of the text, vol. I. (Lahore 1923).

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We need not quote here the relevant passages from Kauṭalya and Magasthenes.¹ A few observations are being made on the methodology of Jolly. According to him the metallurgical knowledge displayed in the *Arthaśāstra* is said to be much too advanced for the Maurya times. As for evidences he has to depend on nothing more than what he considers to be the extant chemico-metallurgical literature of the Hindus. A more reasonable proposition should perhaps consist in questioning the finality of the as yet established antiquity of Hindu chemistry itself. It is time to discuss whether the *Arthaśāstra* references (II, XII, XIII, XIV) do not bespeak fragments of chemical texts or of medico-chemical experience older than has yet been studied (e.g. by Prafulla Chandra Ray). Instead of bringing the *Arthaśāstra* down to post-Maurya times it should be within the limits of scientific truth-investigation to push the older epochs of Hindu metallurgy or chemistry further up to the Mauryas. At the present state of our knowledge it is not possible to dogmatize either way. The question should be regarded as an open one.

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¹ The details are to be found in the chapter on the "Data of Ancient Indian Mineralogy."

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A curious argument is presented by Jolly in the course of his studies bearing on *Dharma vis-à-vis Artha*.

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Should the *Arthaśāstra* comprising the legal portion (*Dharmasthīyam*), says he, be taken for a composition of the fourth century B.C. then the entire chronology, up till now accepted as valid for the schools of Hindu law, falls like a house of cards. It appears, if we are to follow this kind of logic, that all new discoveries and inventions must be forbidden and penalized in order that the *status quo* of a tradition—albiet scholastic—may not be altered.

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It is strange that Jolly, the author of *Recht und Sitte*, should have considered the *Arthaśāstra* to be a branch of the *Dharmaśāstra*. In Hindu mores there is no room for any one category (*kāma*, *artha* or *dharma*) claiming priority to or precedence over another. This indeed is the first postulate about personality and societal organization in Hindu thought. The secular, worldly, economic, political and social interests (*artha* and *kāma*) of mankind can be traced back to the *Atharva Veda* atmosphere in the Vedic complex. The discussions about them, the solicitude for them, the magical and perhaps Tāntric hocus-pocus in their regard are really as old as anything in Indian culture and intellectual discipline. Some of the oldest folk-elements, the secular interests of diverse economic groups, and non-Aryan or pre-Aryan, nay, depressed and un-Brāhmaṇ classes or races are to be found in the milieu of the *Vrātya*.² As long as the *Atharva* tradition is there one does not have to look for the origins of *Arthaśāstra* in some *Vidyā* bearing on non-*Artha*.

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² For *Vrātya*, see *Supra*, pp. 145-148.

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From a careful study of what Jolly has said in connection with the age of the *Arthaśāstra* it seems that he wants the world to believe that the oldest possible documents of law, morals, arts, industries, sciences etc. bearing on India have already been discovered and that the chronology of Hindu literary documents has been ascertained and fixed for ever. And since the *Arthaśāstra* happened to be discovered long after the *Dharmaśāstras* and other branches of Hindu literature had been discovered and studied, the *Arthaśāstra* must therefore by all means be later than and even derived from those sources. This is a very regrettable attitude in the world of science.

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Formichi, 1914

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At the University of Rome a lecture was delivered by Carlo Formichi in 1914. It was published in the *Rivista Italiana di Sociologia* for March-April of the same year under the title "Pensiero e azione nell' India antica" (Thought and Action in Ancient India). The prejudice among Western nations against the Hindu character as being devoid of force and vitality was due to a hasty generalization, said he. But he believed that by the discovery of *Arthaśāstra* the prejudice was demolished. He believed that this discovery would lead in Italy to a revival of studies in Machiavelli. As a student of *nītiśāstra* Formichi had taken a humanist and cosmopolitan view in his *Salus Populi* or "Welfare of the People" (Turin 1908). There he sought to establish the identities in the political ideas of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Kāmandaka. On certain aspects of the Kauṭalya question Formichi took a very conventional view, however. For instance, writing subsequently in 1924 on the *Arthaśāstra* he observed that the treatise failed to furnish ideas of a great national state. Nothing more than a picture of *piccoli* *stati* was to be seen in Kauṭalya's book. The *Arthaśāstra* was alleged to mirror forth the political condition of India before and after the glorious parenthesis of the Maurya Empire. But still he believed that Kauṭalya was a man whose whole life and talent were devoted to moulding *le base d'un impero in India* i.e. the foundations of an Empire in India.

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Bottazzi, 1914

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The Italian scholar G. B. Bottazzi's *Precursori di Niccolo Machiavelli in India ed in Grecia Kauṭilya e Tucidide* was published at Pisa in 1914. The book described two precursors of Machiavelli, namely, Kauṭalya in India and Thucydides in Greece. In his judgment Kauṭalya was taken to have lived like the Greek historian Thucydides *secoli e secoli prima di Cristo*, i.e. centuries and centuries before Christ. In other words, he accepted the Indian tradition about Kauṭalya's *Arthaśāstra* as being a Maurya work. He believed likewise that Kauṭalya was the minister of Chandragupta. For he says that Kauṭalya was more fortunate in practical life than Machiavelli. The Florentine Secretary had a grand dream to which he, a little bit too enthusiastic, fell a victim, as says Villari. But Kauṭalya, on the other hand, was alleged to be more positive and more political and to have lived to see his ideas fulfilled. Bottazzi assumed that it was to Kauṭalya that Chandragupta Maurya owed his accession to the throne.¹

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¹ For Formichi and other Italian writers see the present author's "Hindu Politics in Italian" (*I.H.Q.*, 1925-26), in which Bottazzi's work has been analyzed in detail. The analysis may be seen in the *Pos. Back. Hind. Soc.* Vol. II. Part II. (1927).

Smith, 1914-19

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The third edition of Smith's *Early History of India* was published in 1914 after the publication by Shamasastry of the text of the *Arthaśāstra* (1909) as well as the entire English translation in the *Mysore Review* (1907-10). In this edition also his material of the first edition, "derived solely from Greek authorities", as it was, remained unchanged. Only, one or two footnotes were added from the *Arthaśāstra* to those derived in the second edition from the same source. But nearly eight pages based on the *Arthaśāstra* material were added in the place of two of the second edition. The treatment of the new data in the third edition was somewhat different from that in the previous. Besides, an appendix was added, namely, "*The Arthaśāstra or Kauṭilīyaśāstra.*"

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In the third edition (pp. 137-138) Smith's attitude to the *Arthaśāstra* had already changed in some vital points. "It is not desirable," says he, "to amalgamate the rules laid down in the *Arthaśāstra* with the descriptions recorded by the Greeks, because the latter present to us the impression made upon foreign observers of institutions actually existing at a particular date, 300 B.C. in round numbers, after the foundation of the Maurya Empire, whereas the former express the arrangements favoured by Brāhmaṇ ministers as suitable for any independent kingdom at any time."

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In Smith's judgment (1914) the *Arthaśāstra*, then, was "a pre-Maurya work, an authoritative account of political and social conditions in the Gangetic plain in the age of Alexander the Great" (325 B.C.). The book was, moreover, regarded as a treatise such as had no reference to the "Dravidian kingdoms of the South, which were organized in other fashions".

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In the third edition it was possible for Smith to utilize also the lecture of Hillebrandt at Breslau (1908) as well as the lecture of Jolly at Heidelberg (1911). Jolly's paper on "*Arthaśāstra* und Dharmaśāstra" in the *Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft* (1913) was also acknowledged. It is interesting that Smith mentions Hillebrandt and Jolly who doubted the Maurya antiquity of the *Arthaśāstra* but ignores Jacobi whose paper (1912) was emphatically and aggressively in favour of the Indian tradition.

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But still it is curious that Smith should have made the following statement. "The researches of German scholars", said he, "have clearly established that the *Arthaśāstra* is a genuine and ancient work (*echt und alt*) of the Maurya age, and presumably attributed rightly to Chāṇakya or Kauṭilya." (Third Edition, p. 153).

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This interpretation by Smith is entirely wrong. It is the exact opposite of the views maintained by Hillebrandt and Jolly. Neither of them was convinced of the Mauryanism of the *Arthaśāstra*. Hillebrandt did not dogmatize and venture on any date; but Jolly, although favourable at the outset (1911), was positively against the Maurya origin. The words "*echt*" (genuine or authentic) and "*alt*" (old) used by them did not mean anything more than that it was not a work of any period, say, after the seventh or eighth century A.C. It is regrettable that in English-speaking countries, and especially in India, a misleading notion about the attitude of German indology in regard to the Kauṭalya question should have been propagated by Smith's work at a time when the Hillebrandt-Jacobi controversy and the Jolly-Jacobi controversy were the most characteristic features of this branch of studies in Germany relating to Hindu culture.

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However, Smith reiterated his position to the effect that the contents of the *Arthaśāstra* described the "state of things as existing immediately before the establishment of the Maurya Empire." But he believed in the "possibility or probability that the existing text may contain minor interpolations of later date." He was convinced, however, that the "bulk of the book certainly dated from the Maurya period."¹

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¹ Smith's views as adumbrated in the third edition (1914) appeared in print a few months after the publications of the pre-war "Calcutta School" (1913-14). They began to influence Indian thought during the Great War.

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Smith's general orientations to the *Arthaśāstra* were likewise somewhat new in the third edition. In his judgment in 1914 (as in 1908) many of the rules in Chāṇakya's treatise were "puerile" and "some merely theoretical." But on the whole the book was intended, said he, to be "a practical manual of statecraft and administration"² Then he made a comparison between the *Smriti* books and the *Arthaśāstra*. According to Smith "books like the so-called *Laws of Manu* and *Dharmaśāstra* set forth the Brahman ideal" whereas on the contrary the treatise of Chandragupta's minister was alleged to "openly discard ideals." The *Arthaśāstra* was alleged likewise to present "a plain unvarnished statement of the immoral practice of kings and Brāhmaṇ ministers in the fourth century before Christ, prior to the realization of the novel idea of a great empire extending over nearly all India."

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² Third Edition (1914) p. 144.

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There are many statements in these few lines. Attention will be called to only one point. The words, "theoretical", "ideals" etc. are not clear enough and are eminently misleading.

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In the first place, should the *Arthaśāstra* be, to a certain extent, a work of "principles and methods" and "merely theoretical" (1908 ed. p. 136), adequate attention ought to be bestowed on these aspects. It would be doing injustice to Kauṭalya's work to treat it virtually as a "practical manual" and a "presentation of the facts of actual practice." Indeed, it is impossible to ignore or overlook the "theoretical" side or "principles" of the *Arthaśāstra*. The "rise and progress of states" dealt with in Book VI. is certainly "theoretical" or philosophical. Book VII. describes the sixfold diplomacy or policy of kings. Naturally, this classification points also to a logical analysis of statal facts and, although perhaps based on "facts of actual practice" or experience, is to be treated as a contribution to the theory or philosophy of the state. Then, again, the vices to which kings are liable are analyzed and groupified as usual in Hindu and Śākyan (Buddhist) logic, ethics, or psychology. By no means can the chapter be regarded as on the whole a "practical manual of statecraft and administration." All these portions as well as many chapters, sections, or subsections of the other Books which deal with such problems of the mind, personality, group, society, human relations, society, bureaucracy and so forth can by no means be regarded as purely descriptive reports of the pre-Maurya, Maurya or post-Maurya times.

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The fallacy to which indology has been liable for a long time is due to the fact that the *Arthaśāstra's* scope or character as *Kauṭalyadarśanam* or Kauṭalyan philosophy has been ignored, overlooked or minimized. Whether that philosophy be agreeable or disagreeable, humane or wicked, Machiavellian or Saturnian is an altogether different question. The first and foremost fact about the *Arthaśāstra* is that it is a contribution to thought, the philosophy of the state and society, and of individuals *vis-à-vis* the state and society.

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And therefore we come to another point. Even should the *Arthaśāstra* have to be assessed as a document of "immoral practices" of kings and ministers, it cannot be regarded as having discarded ideals. The proper course in such a state of things is to admit that the *Arthaśāstra* does not deal less with "ideals" than the *Dhammapada*, the *New Testament* or the *Gītā* but that its "ideals" are perhaps as the poles asunder from those of the latter documents. To promulgate alleged unholy, immoral or wicked ideals is not to discard ideals altogether.

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Two considerations should therefore be attended to at once. First, the *Arthaśāstra* is a "philosophical" work, a contribution to "theory", whatever else it may be at the same time. Secondly, the *Arthaśāstra* is a book of "ideals", "norms", "duties" etc. no matter whether we consider those ideals to be desirable or pernicious to mankind.

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Once we admit the philosophical or theoretical nature of some of the discussions in the *Arthaśāstra*, Smith's idea that it "applies only to a small kingdom"³ becomes meaningless and untenable. To say that Kauṭalya meant that his principles were to be "applied in the government of a small kingdom surrounded by other small kingdoms, all either actually or potentially hostile" is to misunderstand the philosophical or theoretical value of the doctrine of *maṇḍala* ("geopolitical" sphere) in the world's political speculation. And this fallacy has been committed by Smith, Jolly, Formichi, Winternitz, Keith and others because they have somehow ignored the speculative aspects of the *Arthaśāstra* or failed to do them adequate justice.

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³ Third Edition (1914) p. 138. See the present author's "Hindu Theory of International Relations" in the *American Political Science Review* (August 1919), *Hindu Rāṣṭrer Gaḍan* (Calcutta 1926), "Hindu Politics in Italian" (*I.H.Q.*, 1925-26), and "The German Translation of the Kauṭalyan Arthaśāstra" (*I.H.Q.*, June 1928).

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On the other hand, those scholars who are prepared to admit that in the doctrine of *maṇḍala* ("geopolitical" sphere) only a philosophical idea of states *vis-à-vis* one another is being adumbrated and that no value should be attached to any region or epoch will also have to be prepared to accept the idea that the *Arthaśāstra* is the work of a theorist, a scholar, a Paṇḍit.

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It is only when we are mentally prepared for the acceptance of the *Arthaśāstra* as a contribution to philosophy by a prefessional scholar that we can fully appreciate the fact that in the entire range of mankind's political speculation there is nothing to compare with the logical analysis of political or rather international psychology as embodied in the doctrine of *maṇḍala*. And from the Indian side this is the greatest single contribution of the Hindu brain to the world's political philosophy.

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Smith's *Oxford History of India* was published in 1919. In this book, he devoted seventeen pages (pp. 76-93) to Maurya institutions, much more indeed in the number of words than in his *Early History* (1914). Here the *Arthaśāstra* loomed large, the *Indika* being rather pushed to the background. Or, perhaps one might say that both were being used at random to supplement or illustrate each other. The name of Megasthenes was however used less frequently than that of Kauṭalya or rather his book.

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Smith's idea about the pre-Maurya character or atmosphere of the *Arthaśāstra* was maintained in the *Oxford History*. "The reader should understand," says he, "that the Nanda Kingdom of Magadha was strong, rich, extensive, protected by a numerous army, and no doubt administered on the system described in the *Arthaśāstra*."

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It is interesting to observe that in all these publications Smith never cared to go into a discussion of the Kauṭalya question. He accepted the Indian tradition as a matter of course and was not at all interested in giving the reasons for his accepting the tradition.

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Vallauri, 1915

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Book I. of the *Arthaśāstra* was translated into Italian by Mario Vallauri in 1915 (Rome) as *Il I Adhikaraṇa dell’ Arthaśāstra di Kauṭilya*. The work was prepared under the guidance of Jolly at Würzburg.

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Shamasastry, 1915

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The English translation by Shamasastry was first published in the *Mysore Review* and the *Indian Antiquary* during 1906-1910 in the most inconvenient manner. In book form the first edition of this English translation was available in 1915.

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In the introduction to this translation he pointed out (1) some of the phrases common to the *Arthaśāstra* and the *Kāmasūtra* of Vātsyāyana, (2) some of the passages cited by Mallinātha for his commentaries on Kālidāsa's *Raghuvamśa* and *Kumārasambhava* and (3) the quotation from the *Arthaśāstra* by Kālidāsa himself in his *Śakuntalā* for the efficacy of hunting as a royal sport.

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An important question raised by him had bearings on the problem as to the priority of the *Arthaśāstra* *vis-à-vis* *Yājnavalkyasmriti*. In his judgment Yājnavalkya must have borrowed from Kauṭalya. Shamasastry pointed out that in Yājnavalkya's time the technical sense of the Kauṭalyan *yukta* (government official) had been forgotten.

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Shamasastry considered the Kauṭalyan society to be in the main pre-Buddhistic (pre-Śākyan) and the societies reflected in the *Manu Samhitā* and the *Yājnavalkya Smriti* as portraying conditions of revived Hinduism and decadent Buddhism.

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Finally, he singled out a few words which were alleged to violate the grammatical rules of Pāṇini. Presumably, "Kauṭalya was unaware of Pāṇini."

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It is not out of place to observe that Shamasastry made it a point to refer to the two editions of Smith's *Early History of India* (second edition, 1908, third edition 1914), in which the civil and constitutional laws of the *Arthaśāstra* were treated as strikingly similar to those recorded by Megasthenes and other Greek writers.

Fleet, 1915

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In the introduction to Shamasastry's English translation J. F. Fleet observed that the "archaic style" of the *Arthaśāstra* was "well in agreement with the claim" that it belonged to the period 321-296 B.C. To him as to Smith the problem was thus very simple. In his judgment it is but a "common practice of Indian writers" that the "name Kauṭilya figures constantly through the book, especially in places where the author lays down his own views as differing from others which he cites."

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