Jain Thought and Culture

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

Page 45

The Riddle of Chanakya and Kaublya
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and almost all of them have remained unshaken inspite of everything that has been said to the contrary The supporters of the traditional view usually give emphasis on the similarities in the general condition of the people portrayed in these two works and forget that such similarities may be found in any two works of entirely different periods Actually, in such cascs it is the differences and not similarities which should be considered in determining the contemporarnity or otherwise of two treatises
Several other attempts have been made to arrive at a date for the Arthasastra by showing that the socicly portrayed in the Smritis of Manu (usually assigned to c 200 BC to c 20 AD) and Yajnavalkya (usually assigned to the early centuries of the Christian era)' is in many respects latter than the one depicted by Kautilya But curiously the same argument has been used by others to prove the posteriority of the Arthasastra to these works Jolly, who worked along these lines came to the conclusion that "Kautilya must have been acquainted with the whole body of Dharmasastra literature as we now have it " Therefore, the comparison of the contents of the Arthasastra with those of the Smritis can hardly lead us to any decisive results It is quite well-known that the authors of both the Arthasastra and the Dharmasastra literalures freely utilized earlier works on their respective subjects It is quite natural, therefore, that early and late materials appear side by side in their treatises. That being so, it is regarded as axiomatic that the dates of the composition of such works should be determined by their material of the later period 10 Consequently, if the Arthasastra is found containing material of the posl-Maurya period, the fact that some of its portions appear to depict the condition of the Maurya age would only mean that while writing those portions its author drew upon some Maurya treatise on the science of polity As Kaulilya himself states that he consulted earlier works on this subject, this hypothesis should require no additional proof We therefore feel that an analysis of the points of similarities between the Arthasastra on the
9 Manu Smrt was probably based on a Manava Dharma-Sutra It was most likely initially composed in the Sunga period but was retised later on Yajnalalkya Smrti has been placed by Jolly in the fourth century AD and by Kane in AD 100-300 (cf The Classical Age, pp 256 7) 10 In this connection it is interesting to note that Kautilya's categorical statement (31) that a royal edict (rajasasuna) overrides dharma, vycuahara and charitrad which is somewhat exception in the political literature of ancient India, is followe by the Naradusmriti, a work of the Gupta age