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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s1.t2: Hertel, 1910-14

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s1.t2

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English

Hertel, 1910-14

c11.s1.t2.1

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.

c11.s1.t2.2

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.

c11.s1.t2.3

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.

c11.s1.t2.4

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."

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