The Arthashastra's Statecraft

Arthashastra: An ancient Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, economics, law, espionage and war, traditionally credited to Kautilya, adviser to Chandragupta Maurya around the 4th century BCE, though scholars think it was compiled and revised over several centuries; its 15 books read like an operating manual for running and expanding a kingdom.

R. Shamasastry: A librarian at the Mysore Oriental Library identified a lost palm leaf manuscript of the Arthashastra in 1905, published it in 1909, and translated it into English in 1915, reintroducing the text to the world after centuries of obscurity.

Chanakya: Legend says the Brahmin strategist was insulted and thrown out of the Nanda court, then vowed not to tie up his hair tuft until he had destroyed the dynasty, which he did by grooming a young Chandragupta.

Chandragupta Maurya: Plutarch records that as a young man he met Alexander the Great, and later remarked that Alexander could easily have taken India because the reigning Nanda king was so hated.

Rajamandala: Kautilya's 'circle of kings' holds that your neighbor is your natural enemy and your neighbor's neighbor is your natural friend, a map of alliances drawn roughly 1,800 years before Machiavelli.

Shadgunya: The Arthashastra's six measures of foreign policy are peace, war, staying put, marching, seeking shelter with a stronger power, and the 'dual policy' of making peace with one king while fighting another.

Gudhapurusha: The text's secret agents posed as monks, students, merchants, farmers and fortune tellers, and a report was trusted only when three independent spies confirmed it.

Upadha: Kautilya advised testing every minister in secret with four temptations, piety, money, lust and fear, and assigning each one only the duties he had proven he could resist.

Adhyakshapracara: This book on state superintendents lists forty ways officials embezzle and warns that catching a thieving official is as hard as knowing when a fish swimming underwater drinks.

Matsya Nyaya: The 'law of the fish,' where big fish eat small fish, is Kautilya's picture of a land without a strong ruler, the chaos that justified the king's power to punish.

Saptanga Theory: The Arthashastra defines the state as seven limbs, king, ministers, territory, fort, treasury, army and ally, and warns that 'all undertakings depend on the treasury.'

Kantakashodhana: Meaning 'removal of thorns,' this section sets fines for cheating merchants, dishonest weavers and even washermen caught wearing their customers' clothes.

Duta: Kautilya's envoys were expected to deliver their master's message even under threat of death, and he argued messengers should never be killed because they are merely the mouthpiece of another king.

Nagavana: The Arthashastra set aside protected elephant forests and prescribed death for anyone who killed an elephant there, because war elephants were a strategic asset.

Mudrarakshasa: This Sanskrit play by Vishakhadatta dramatizes Chanakya outwitting the Nanda minister Rakshasa with forged letters, stolen signet rings and a 'poison maiden' assassin plot.

Nanda Empire: Its reputed army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of war elephants helped convince Alexander's exhausted troops to mutiny at the Beas River rather than march east.

Seleucus I Nicator: Around 303 BCE he handed Chandragupta vast territories in exchange for 500 war elephants, which then helped Seleucus win the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BCE.

Megasthenes: The Greek ambassador to Chandragupta's court wrote the Indika, describing a capital ringed by a timber wall with 570 towers and 64 gates.

Pataliputra: The Mauryan capital, buried beneath modern Patna, was among the largest cities in the ancient world and the command center where Arthashastra style administration was put into practice.

Ashoka: Chandragupta's grandson turned away from conquest after the Kalinga War, which his own Rock Edict XIII says killed 100,000 people and deported 150,000, a dramatic break from Kautilyan realpolitik.

Max Weber: In his 1919 lecture Politics as a Vocation the German sociologist said that compared with the Arthashastra, Machiavelli's The Prince is harmless.

Jawaharlal Nehru: In The Discovery of India he wrote that Chanakya has been called the Indian Machiavelli, but that he was 'a much bigger person in every way.'

Chanakya Niti: This popular collection of sharp aphorisms is attributed to Chanakya but is a separate, later work from the Arthashastra, and its sayings still circulate widely as life advice in India.

Chanakya (TV series): Chandraprakash Dwivedi's 1991 Doordarshan drama, in which he also starred as the strategist, turned the ancient kingmaker into a household name for a new generation.

Chanakyapuri: New Delhi's diplomatic enclave, home to most foreign embassies, is named after the ancient master of alliances and spies.