The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c14.s9.t1.7

c14.s9.t1.7

No matter, whether analytical or historical, the *Rājanīti-ratnākara* does present us with the history of Hindu political philosophy for nearly fourteen hundred years from Manu down to Chaṇḍeśvara. The author’s bibliography is rich. Regrettably enough for us moderns, he has not cared to mention Kauṭalya or Chāṇakya. But he is well read, and no modern professor of political science in the East or the West could beat him either in the perspicuous manner of presentation and lucidity of treatment or in the extent of literature covered by him within the short compass of less than 90 pages. Any Western author today who is called upon to deal with the leading ideas of European political philosophy from, say, Seneca to Bartolus (1314-1357), the prince of jurists, will know how to admire the command of subject-matter as well as the skill in handling it as displayed by our Brāhman of Mithila in the fourteenth century.