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III
FOREWORD
It is a highly astonishing event in the cultural history of India that the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya has left obvious and indelible impressions on the literary genre of the Jaina works. It's curious to think of polity-leden Arthaśāstra influencing the mythology and the cultural ethos of Ancient India. This view did receive certain adequate attention from the Brahmanic and Jaina scholars. Fortunately Dr. Mrs. Nalini Joshi has undertaken this momentous task of studying the influence of the Kautilya's Arthaśāstra on many Jaina Narrative works. She has taken laudable efforts for exploring almost all the Jaina works and tried to find out the interaction of both the thought-ferments of India.
With her deep study in Sanskrit works on polity and propound erudition in the Jaina varieties of Prakrit texts, Dr. Joshi has brought out the salient specialities of polity developed in the Arthaśāstra and numerous Jaina Prakrit texts. She has specially considered certain texts like the drama Mudrārāksasa, depicting Kauțilya as a shrewd strategist. In some of the works, Kauțilya is
