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presented as if they are the actual events in the life of Caṇakya.
The Jainas have created a perfect thought-model to present Cāṇakyan tales. Each and every chapter of the Arthaśästra is the outcome of Caṇakya's pāriņāmiki-buddhi (acquired knowledge through experience). Therefore they imbibed each and every incident in Caṇakya's own life-story. Thus the Caṇakyan stories are a perfect blend of legends, myths and superimposed fantacies. The whole biography of Caṇakya is chronologically adequate and logically sound at many times but we cannot claim that it is factually reliable. [2] Some glimpses of the socio-cultural similarities in the Arthaśāstra and Ardhamāgadhi Canons
The oral tradition of the Ardhamāgadhi Canons, particularly of eleven main (angas) texts started from the 6th century B.C. and the texts were finalized after approximately one thousand years (i.e. 5th century A.D.). Even though a long rope is given for the time-to-time interpolations, we have to admit that the socio-cultural environment apparently matches with the conditions of the Arthaśāstra of Kautilya - the unique text on polity available to us at present.
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The similarities are so many and so striking, that if we enumerate and document them in an essay-form, it would convert a lengthy article with hair-splitting discussions. Here, an attempt has been made to present some glimpses of the socio-cultural similarities in the both, in a concise form. In this matter, the original Sanskrit words and citations from Arthaśāstra and the original words and citations from Ardhamāgadhī texts are quoted side by side, in devanāgarī script. The titles of the subject-matter are given in English. English translation of each and every word is not given because we intend to highlight the phonetic similarities between Sanskrit and Prakrit terms.
