This translation by Rangarajan is a good reference book if you are coming back to Arthashastra for reference, but not particularly good for a first reading. In other words, what Kautilya calls the 'interest of the king' would nowadays be termed 'National Interest'. In trying to understand Kautilya's analysis, we have to keep in mind the fact that in the Kautilyan view, the king encapsulates all the constituents of a state, he has expounded the theory in terms of the king - any king.
Arthashastra in english book download manual#
The text of this extraordinarily detailed manual contains fifteen books which cover numerous topics viz., the King a complete code of law foreign policy secret services civic responsibilities, and so on. The Arthashastra is written mainly in prose but also incorporates 380 shlokas, which adds a vital poetic flourish to this otherwise down-to-earth classic. The Arthashastra is the most comprehensive treatise on statecraft of classical times, and perhaps of all time. The Arthaśāstra also focuses on issues of welfare (for instance, redistribution of wealth during a famine) and the collective ethics that hold a society together. The scope of Arthaśāstra is, however, far wider than statecraft, and it offers an outline of the entire legal and bureaucratic framework for administering a kingdom, with a wealth of descriptive cultural detail on topics such as mineralogy, mining and metals, agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine and the use of wildlife. It discusses the ethics of economics and the duties and obligations of a king. Roger Boesche describes the Arthaśāstra as "a book of political realism, a book analysing how the political world does work and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good."Ĭentrally, Arthaśāstra argues how in an autocracy an efficient and solid economy can be managed. The first English translation was published in 1915. The text was influential until the 12th century, when it disappeared. 350–283 BC), who was a scholar at Takshashila and the teacher and guardian of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan Empire. It identifies its author by the names 'Kauṭilya' and 'Vishnugupta', both names that are traditionally identified with Chanakya (c. The Arthashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy, written in Sanskrit.
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