The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s1.t24: Arthaśāstra the Work of one Person

c11.s1.t24.1

Hillebrandt all along held the view and has stated it in his *Altindische Politik* (Ancient Indian Politics, Jena, 1923), that the portions marked *iti Kauṭilyah* constitute the statements of Kauṭilya himself, but collected together by some of his followers who are responsible for the compilation of the whole book. Against this view of the school or collective origin of the *Arthaśāstra* Meyer offers his own which runs to the effect that *iti Kauṭalyah* may be written by Kauṭalya himself just as *iti Baudhāyanah* by Baudhāyana in the *Baudhāyanasūtra*. One does not have to make any distinction between the different portions of the work as regards authorship. With the exception of Book II which may be derived from or rather based on various sources but is by no means independent of the author's personal equation, the entire work appears to be the product of one fount, the creation of a single man; and that man is no other than the person who is self-conscious enough not to be ashamed of describing himself in his own book in the third person as *iti Kauṭalyah*.