Jain Thought and Culture

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

Page 57

The Riddle of Chanakya and Kautilya
lya Most likely Kautilya was the gotra name of Vishnugupta 39 So far as Chanakya is concerned, there are no good grounds to doubt that he was a historical figure In any case from an carly period the legend of Chanakya was popular and widely known In it he figured as the archetype of political cleverness Probably it was the reason which led somebody to identify him with Kautilya, the greatest authority on science of polity who actually flourished more than five hundred years later than Chanakya When this development took place is not definitely known but it must have taken place very shortly after the composition of the Arthasastra, for the author of the Mudrarakshasa is aware of the supposed identity of the two Similarly, the Puranas refer to the destroyer of the Nandas by the name of Kautilya" and the Panchatantra (composed in the Gupta age) mentions Chanakya as an author on the science of polity 41 According to Burrow, Visakhadatta (whom he places in the sixth century) was possibly the person responsible for this identification Once this identification became current, it was not unnatural for some scribe to add a verse at the end of the final chapter of the Arthasastra stating this its author was responsible for the destruction of the Nandas in the words of Keith, “It is the only passage which resers clearly to the defeat of the Nandas and there is no reason to believe that it belongs to the original work There is already a metrical conclusion "42 Such additions and confusions in literary traditions of ancient India are usually found. For example in the early medieval period the author of the Bhojaprabandha made a large number of literary giants contemporary to Bhoja while another tradition made Vikramaditya of legends a patron of nine jewels (some of whom, according to the former tradition, graced the court of Bhoja) and ascribed to him many of the achievements of the Gupta Vikramadityas 43
39 See Burrow op cit In the manuscripts of the Arthasastra the name Kautilya also occurs in form of Kautalya Now-a-days the latter spelling is usually regarded as correct (PHAI, P 285 n 2) though Kangle has preferred the former Both these however were gotra names Kautilya is not, as some ancient and modern scholars have supposed, a nickname signifying 'crookedness' 40 Pargiter, Dynasties of the Kali Age, P, 16, 41 However the Kathamukha of this work, where this reference occurs did not form part of its Pahlavi translation (c 570 AD) 42 B C Law Vol 1 p 494 43 cf Vikrama Volume, pp 483 ff