Arthashastra aparnama Rajsiddhanta

Author(s): Kautilya Acharya,
Publisher: Singhi Jain Shastra Shiksha Pith Mumbai

Page 14

THE TEXT OF THE ARTHASASTRA
By D. D. KOSAMBI,
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.
09
The discovery of the Patan Bhaṇḍār palm-leaf fragments (dated on palaeographic grounds at about the 12th century A. D.) was the first real step forward in the textual problem of the Arthasāstra since the appearance of printed editions' based on southern texts. Acarya śrī Jinavijaya Muni has made the new material available to all scholars, and lightened their future labours, by this comparative edition of the Patan folios. The actual text-fragment covers the whole of the first book (adhikarana) except the very beginning, the first six chapters of the second, and substantial portions of 27 and 2.10. Here, the gloss is in the form of minuscule notes on the margin by several different hands. The other part with the commentary of Yogghama extends, with lacunae, only over the first three chapters of book two and the opening of 2.4. Nevertheless, the importance of the material is far greater than its relative extent, because substantial contributions are made thereby not only to the problem of the Arth. transmission, but to Indian textual criticism in general.
1. To consider minor points first: The author's personal name, also preserved by the later drama Mudrārākṣasa, seems to have been Viṣṇugupta. Caṇakya is presumably the patronymic; the possible connection of this appellation with a Canaka-raja-niti reported in the Tibetan Tanjur is not clear. The gotra name by which the brahmin author would be known outside his gens was generally taken as Kautilya, and the gotra name survives in that form today3. However, T.
1). First edition of R. Shama Sastry, Mysore 1909; 2nd edition, 1919; 3rd, 1924. By T. Ganapati Sastri, Trivandrum 1923-5, (in three parts, with a commentary, Trivandrum Sanskrit Series, 79, 80, 82). J. Jolly and R. Schmidt, Lahore 1923-5. The fine German translation by J. J. Meyer, Leipzig 1926 deserves special mention.
2).. In the Tanjur Catalogue by M. Lalou; but no analysis of the specific text is ⚫ available to me.
3), J. Brough: The early brahmanical system of gotra and pravara (the Gotra-pravara-mañjarī of Purusottama). Cambridge, 1953, pp. 82, 88, 96 (Bhrgus); 107, 109 (Gautamas); a Kulkarni family with this gotra was reported by V. T. Shete: Sukla-Yajurvediya-Madhyandina brahmanamci gotrāvalī (in Marathi); 2nd ed. (Poona 1951) p. 33.