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The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s1.t6: Smith, 1914-19

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s1.t6

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English

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.

Cites (12)