The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s1.t5.4

c11.s1.t5.4

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.