The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s8: Kauṭalya and His Boswell

The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c11.s8

Language: English

Kauṭalya and His Boswell

c11.s8.1

In regard to the alleged Maurya milieu of the *Arthaśāstra* materials or contents the Indian tradition remains unproven after thirty years of strenuous studies in Kauṭalyalogy. On the other hand, the arguments advanced against the Indian tradition from all sides have failed to prove anything. The benefit of doubt is therefore in favour of the Indian tradition to the effect that the *Arthaśāstra* is the work of the Maurya, especially of the Chandraguptan epoch.

c11.s8.2

In regard to the second question, namely that about the authorship, likewise, nothing conclusive has yet been advanced to prove that Kauṭalya, the minister of Chandragupta Maurya, is the author of the *Arthaśāstra* in the form in which we have it. But, on the other hand, it is possible to argue strongly against its being *entirely* the work of one man and to suspect that somebody who is not Kauṭalya the minister himself has had a hand in its preparation. Although Kauṭalyan and Maurya in the main, the *Arthaśāstra* has therefore to be regarded as a compilation in the making of which a non-Kauṭalyan hand has to be admitted. These non-Kauṭalyan traces are separate from the eventual interpolations of words or phrases that may have crept in subsequently. The non-Kauṭalyan hand is to be seen in the substantial portions or main *corpus* of the work itself. We are speaking of the man who virtually "made" Kauṭalya and started the tradition about him.

c11.s8.3

The most commonsense and matter of fact view of the last chapter of the *Arthaśāstra* ought to be (1) that the writer of this chapter is not the same man as Kauṭalya, (2) that Kauṭalya is a famous name and is very highly adored by the writer, and (3) that the writer has collected together the Kauṭalyan ideas for publication under his editorship. As for the relation in which the writer of the last chapter stands to Kauṭalya two alternatives may be suggested. First, the writer is a pupil, colleague or secretary of Kauṭalya. Or perhaps the writer is exploiting Kauṭalya’s name in order to palm his own ideas off as Kauṭalyan. Now, it appears that there is nobody to challenge the alleged Kauṭalyan authorship of the main body of the book. It has, therefore, been accepted by the people as emanating from Kauṭalya himself on the assurance or authority of the editor, i.e., the writer of the last chapter. The origin of the Indian tradition about the Kauṭalyan school or system may have to be sought in these circumstances. The tradition may have been started by this editor and it caught the imagination of the folk or the literary public.

c11.s8.4

The very opening lines of the first chapter say that the work is a summary and compilation from the works of previous authors. This statement may have been written by the writer of the last chapter, i.e., the editor or publisher, who was perhaps himself a compiler or the compiler-in-chief.

c11.s8.5

All those 72 places in which Kauṭalya has been quoted by name as against other professors of *Nīti* or *Artha* philosophy indicate, likewise, that a person who is different from Kauṭalya has been at work. No normal-minded person can ever believe that Kauṭalya as author was mentioning himself in the third person as arrayed against others in the discussions. The style indicates that diverse views were presented by a student of comparative politics and that in his judgment Kauṭalya loomed large.

c11.s8.6

All through this work we have to feel the breath of two persons. The first is the hero, the demigod, the *avatāra*, Kauṭalya himself. The second is the person who is making Kauṭalya the subject of his study, propaganda, glorification and what not. This second man may be regarded as Kauṭalya's editor, publisher, advertiser etc., as the person who places Kauṭalya before the world of letters, who institutes comparisons between Kauṭalya and his precursors, and who narrates to mankind all that this superman is alleged to have accomplished. This man is Kauṭalya's Boswell,—a St. Paul to the Jesus of Nazareth. Whether there was a Viṣṇugupta, Chāṇakya, Kauṭalya or Kauṭilya we do not know, nay, need not know. His Boswell has created such a living personality, such a veritable *avatāra* like Vālmīki his Rāma that the actual historicity of Kauṭalya becomes a question of eighth-rate importance. Thanks to the brilliant propaganda made by this pious Anonym the *Arthaśāstra* passed into the literary tradition of India as an integral part of the folk's political consciousness.

c11.s8.7

The Boswell and the Johnson, the St. Paul and the Jesus are two different persons by all means. But they are contemporaries, they belong to the same age like Vālmīki and Rāma. In the present instance the *Arthaśāstra* belongs to the Maurya epoch as the Indian tradition has been created by the editor. Thus considered, the situation is quite akin to or rather almost identical with Hillebrandt's hypothesis in 1908 about the school or pupils of Kauṭalya as being responsible for the *Arthaśāstra* as compiled in the form in which we have it today. This school constitutes, however, the immediate entourage of the master himself and does not have to be regarded as any the least remote from him in time.

c11.s8.8

The Indian tradition about the Kauṭalyan authorship is not marred by the recognition of the second person, the Boswell, in the *Arthaśāstra* complex. Nor is the Maurya milieu of the work tampered with because of this circumstance. The suggested dichotomy into the editor and Kauṭalya does not lead us to the position of Winternitz about the negation of Kauṭalya and the Maurya origin or to that of D. R. Bhandarkar who suggests that the school may have been established and the finishing touch imparted shortly before the time of Kāmandaka, i.e., several centuries after the age of Chandragupta Maurya. In the scheme suggested in the present edition, the Indian tradition does not have to be discarded or modified in any way, because the tradition may have been created by the Boswellism of the editor. Let us go further.

c11.s8.9

Even if in the last analysis Kauṭalya should turn out to be a contemporary of Kālidāsa (fourth-fifth century A.C.) and a citizen of the Gupta Empire the Maurya milieu of the *Arthaśāstra* cannot be negatived by any means. We ought never to overlook the fact that the author or editor of this treatise commences his work by saying categorically that he prepared it by condensing "almost all" the *Arthaśāstras* that had been composed by "old masters." One does not know how much or how little of originality is to be ascribed to the Kauṭalyan summary or compilation. But it is reasonable to believe that plenty of data bearing on olden times,—Maurya, pre-Maurya and what not,—are to be discovered in this work.

c11.s8.10

The Indian tradition about the Maurya origin of the *Arthaśāstra* remains unshaken in spite of the desperate efforts, mostly illogical although learned as they are, of Jolly, Stein, Winternitz, Keith and Johnston.

c11.s8.11

It is worth while to mention, as has been indicated previously, that the controversy has not taken the form of Indian *vs.* European. Among the Europeans themselves there have been two camps since the very beginning. Pre-war indology in Germany, so far as Kauṭalyalogy is concerned, yielded the following situation:

c11.s8.12

c11.s8.13

In the Jolly-Jacobi controversy Hillebrandt was virtually neutral. He did not commit himself to any definite date. At any rate he did not maintain in so many words that the *Arthaśāstra* was post-Maurya or un-Maurya.

c11.s8.14

In that controversy the British indologist Smith was on Jacobi’s side although he does not appear to have referred to the latter by name. To the same camp belonged two other British indologists, J. F. Fleet and F. W. Thomas.

c11.s8.15

Subsequent Kauṭalyalogy in Germany yields the following situation:

c11.s8.16

c11.s8.17

In this latter-day controversy the British indologist Keith belongs to the Jolly group and is therefore opposed to his compatriot Smith. Be it noted *enpassant* that Winternitz, although writing in German, is Czechoslovak by nationality.

c11.s8.18

Among the British indologists the following grouping may be noticed :

c11.s8.19

c11.s8.20

Among Italian indologists both Formichi and Bottazzi are on the side of the Indian tradition. In Mario Vallauri's Italian translation of Book I. there is no discussion of the Kauṭalya question. But as the work was done under the guidance of Jolly at Würzburg he may perhaps find himself against the Indian tradition.

c11.s8.21

It is interesting that in these things European scholarship goes very often along the lines of *gurus* as in ancient India.

c11.s8.22

Thus we have already the following :

c11.s8.23

c11.s8.24

As long as a tradition is there about the Maurya *milieu* of the text and its author it is for the anti-tradition party to adduce internal and external evidences such as may demolish the tradition. Unfortunately, up till now the evidences advanced are poor and mostly in the nature of (1) probabilities, (2) guesses, (3) *argumentum ex silentio*, (4) postulates about the interval between a borrower and his original, (5) comparison with a foreigner who was known in some circles as a liar and whose objectivity is very often questionable, and (6) hypothesis as to the probable degree of technocratic, industrial, political and juridical developments in pre-Christian India. Naturally the logic behind such arguments cannot appear to be convincing.

c11.s8.25

Last but not least, the anti-tradition group is not adequately oriented to the implications of its admission that the *Arthaśāstra* is the work of a scholar (Paṇḍit). In so far as it is such a work it cannot and ought not as a matter of course to be called in for evidence for the objective account about social, economic, legal or political conditions. Every attempt on this basis is likely to be *ultra vires*.

c11.s8.26

As for the Indian Kauṭalyalogists, all of whom virtually belong to the pro-tradition group (with the exception of R. G. Bhandarkar and Pran Nath), it is time for them to accept the proposition referred to above, namely, that the *Arthaśāstra* is a *darśanam*, a *śāstra*, a book of *vidyā* and just like other *śāstras* of Hindu literature written by a Paṇḍit. It contains pious wishes of all sorts, norms, platitudes, ideals, duties, things that ought to be done, and what not, such as belong to every philosophical treatise. Besides, it is impossible to argue out of existence the innumerable hair-splitting groupifications, the hyper-logical discussions *pro* and *contra*, etc., in the manner of the Sākyan (Buddhist) *Nikāyas*, for instance, that mark many of the chapters.

c11.s8.27

The very last chapter of the *Arthaśāstra* describing the thirty-two *tantra yuktis* is a good illustration of the grammatical mood and ultralogical classifying mentality in which the treatise often appears to us. All these philosophical and logical aspects, be it observed once more, can tally quite well with the profoundly realistic, objective, statistical and statemanlike grasp of the realities of flesh and blood that constitute the seven-limbed (*saptāmga*) organism known as the state.

c11.s8.28

And finally, this leads to the item to which Indian indologists have likewise need to be adequately oriented, namely, that many of the ideals, *dharma* (duties), norms etc. expounded in the *Arthaśāstra* are frankly and hundred per cent Machiavellian. It is fallacious to believe that "ideals" and "pious wishes" must always be holy, humane, high-souled, or philanthropic as one generally understands them according to one's lights. The Machiavellian ideals are also ideals,—and whatever they may mean,—have never been seriously repudiated in the *Realpolitik* as well as in the political philosophy of the world.³⁴ As an exponent of Machiavellism Kauṭalya is in excellent company, Eastern and Western, and the *Arthaśāstra* is one of the greatest works of mankind in the realm of political ethics or logic (*Staatsräson*). It is a glory to the Hindu brain that this powerfully conceived philosophical masterpiece on the problems and solutions of group life, of man in society, and of man in state has not been excelled, so far as it goes, in any quarter of the globe and in any epoch of culture-history.

c11.s8.29

³⁴ For the diverse aspects of Machiavellism see B. K. Sarkar : *Hindu Politics in Italian* (Pos. Back. Vol. II. Part II.).

c11.s8.30

If our Mother India is great and divine because she gave birth to a Śākya the Buddha (Awakened), let us all worship our Mother India as equally great and divine because she produced a Viṣṇugupta-Chāṇakya, the Kauṭalya or the Kauṭilya (Cunning or Crooked). It is in this worship that we do justice to the glorious "positive background" of Hindu sociology as furnishing the folk-elements, the materialistic complex, the worldly group-consciousness and the rationalistic perspectives of India's transcendental and spiritual achievements. Kauṭalya completes Buddha.

Linked texts (1)

Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit