Jain Thought and Culture

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

Page 42

SR GOYAL.
THE RIDDLE OF CHANAKYA ANI) KUTILY.
The Riddle :
Perhaps no problem of ancient Indian history has been so holly debated as tlie date of the Arthasastra of Kautilya It is mtimately connected with the question of the idcnility of the Prime Minister of Chandragupta Maurya. According to R Shama Sastry and many other distinguished scholars Kautilya, the author of the Arthasastra, also called Vishwugupla in tlic samic work (15 1) was identical with Chanakya and was the Prime Muster of the first Maurya. The work would thus belong to the close of the fourth century BCI On this ground UN Ghoshal even uses the Arthasastra material for the pre-Maurya period 2 In the recent years a new dimension has been added to the traditional view by the attempts of some writers to prove that the author of the Arthasastra was not only the Prime
*Reader in History, University of Jodhpur, Jodhpur 1 In support of the fourth century BC as the date of the Arthasastra, sec Shama Sastry's preface to his edition of this work, Fleet's Introductory Note to Shama Sastry's tr , T Ganapati Sastri's Intro to his cd of the Arthasastra, Jacobi, TA, XLVII, p 187, K P Jayaswal, Hindu Polity, 1, App C pp 203-15, N N Law, Calcutta Review, Sept, Dec 1934, N N Law, Allahabud University Studies, History Section, 1942, DR Bhandarkar, ABORI VII, pp 65, ff, RK Mukerji's Introduc tory Essay in NN Law's Studies in Ancient Hudu Polity and his Chapter on the foundation of the Maurya empire in the Comp Hest India, Vol II, K A Nilalanta Sastri's ch on the Maurya polity in the Age of the Nandas and Mauryas, Dikshitar, The Maurya Polity, Breloer, Kautilya Studies,'1-111, quoted by K A Nilkanta Sastri op cit, Also see H C Ray, IA, LIV PP 170, 201, Kane, ABORI, VII pp 85 ff J Meyer, Das Arthasastra, quoted by K A N Sastri, History of Dharma Sastra, I, 85 L D Barnett, VA Smith, FW Thomas and D D Kosambi also use the Arthasastra in connection with the Mauryas RP Kangle, a supporter of this theory has discussed all the argument in favour of the traditional view in detail in the third volume of his critical edition of the Arthasastra 2 Ghoshal, U N , A History of Indian Public Life, II, pp 9ff Monahan (Early History of Bengal, I 31) believes that the Arthasastra was composed before the imperial system of Chandragupta Maurya was started