Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 47
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

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Page 210
________________ 194 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY (JULY, 1918 it in its widest sense, the irritation caused by the conduct of the opponent ; 1' the primary meaning of uddhrta is something like "restoring to its rights" and is according to its object to be translated differently: with reference to the Science it may be rendered with something like "reform." The sense of Kautilya's words very probably is that he [848] is vexed over the narrow-mindedness of his predecessors, and that he has without a moment's hesitation (asu) thrown overboard their dogmatism: it implies the sense of contempt in which the "Professors ” are held by the statesmir, which even Bismarck was at no pains to conceal. This standpoint of Kautilya finds expression in his work, on the one hand in the frequent rejection of the doctrines of the acåryas, on the other hand, in the admittance of important matters into the Sastra which his predecessors did not deal with there, but which in a serviceable hand-book of Politics could not very well be left out. The agreement obtaining between the words of Kautilya and the character of his work, and the personality that characterises them would be difficult to understand, if those were not the very words of the author. A later writer who wanted to palm off his own lucubration or that of his school on the name of the famous statesman, would surely have faltered somewhere. From this view point the higher criticism must acknowledge the authenticity of the Kauțiliya. Many will perhaps find it difficult to bring themselves to believe in the authenticity of the Kautiliya for the reason that literary forgeries have been in India the order of the day from time immemorial on an extensive scale. For is it not a forgery when & work is given out as revealed (prokta) by Manu, Yajña valkya, Vyúsa or some god or Rşi? But a forgery in the name of a historical personality with studied adaptation of the work on that of the latter would be no longer a pia fraus but a refined imposture, which has no counterpart in the Indian method. For this case would be quite different from that when, for instance, some tractate or commentary is attributed to Sankara through the putting down of his name at the end of the chapter; the Kauţiliya is a masterly product of the highest rank and recognised as such through a long series of centuries. He who could write such a work must have suffered from a inor bid lack of self-consciousness, were be to send it out into the world under the name of another in order to assure its recognition.--Another mis-statement commonly made by authors in India is one which is rather a suppressio veri than a direct falsification, and consists in the publishing of the work under the name of the patron who brought about the composition, more or less influences or even supervises it, instead of under that of the author biinself; a well-known instance is that of the works going under the name of Bhoja, king of Dhara. Such an origin is impossible in the case of the Kautiliva on account of the way explained above in which Kautilya looks upon the composition of the work as a personal achievement; and even if such were the case, the question of the age of the work would not be affected by it. On the other hand, I do not wish [849] to dispute that Kautilya may have had collaborators for certain parts of his work, especially for such as deal with technical details ; officers engaged in the respective branches of administration may have supplied the material and he may have only attended to its editing. A similar state of things may be observed elsewhere, for example, in the commentary of 1. Compare the definition in the Rasaga'igAdhara, p. 88: parakridvahadindnd paradhajanyo maunaodkpdrusya-dikaranfbhua cittavrttidseso 'margar. Similarly already in Bharata, p. 80: amargo ndma vidyais varyadhanabalaksiplaayd 'pamanitasya od samutpadyase. These definitions are applicable primarily to poems and dramas,

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