Shudras in Ancient India: A Social History of the Lower Order down to circa A.D. 600 c11.2

c11.2

Our chief source for the study of the position of the śūdras during the Mauryan period is the *Arthaśāstra* of Kauṭilya, which can be supplemented by the fragments from the account of Megasthenes, and the inscriptions of Aśoka. But perhaps no single question in ancient Indian history has been debated so much as the date and authenticity of the *Arthaśāstra*.¹ On the one hand it is passionately held that the work belongs to Kauṭilya, the minister of Candragupta; on the other this is vehemently denied and the work is ascribed to the first or the third century A.D. It is not possible to recapitulate the whole controversy, but certain observations seem to be necessary. The one great weakness of the arguments of the opposite school is their negative character. A verse at the end of the *Arthaśāstra* clearly attributes this work to one who destroyed the Nandas,² —a tradition which is recorded in later brāhmaṇical and Jain literature. This verse is particularly valuable in view of the fact that such biographical notices about the authors of the Dharma-sūtras and the Smṛtis are conspicuously wanting in other cases. Further, no literary source gives any alternative information suggesting that Kauṭilya belonged to some other period.