Warring States Project | Kautilya's Maxims

The late 04th century wars of Chandragupta established the Maurya Dynasty in India. The third Maurya ruler was the Buddhist convert Asoka; his domain was already wider than his grandfather's. Later Maurya rulers reached an even higher level of economic and bureaucratic development.

Chandragupta's advisor Kautilya is known to us only as his maxims are preserved in the Arthashâtra, a large work on government administration and political economy. The work's Sanskrit is sprinkled with Pali-isms, suggesting the time of Asoka, and the implied organization of Maurya government also points to a date later than Asoka. But the Kautilya sayings in the work never occur in context with the elaborate bureaucracy, and they include none of the hundreds of Pali-isms. They seem to constitute an early layer in the text, one which implies a court organization closer than the rest of the Arthashâstra to what the early Greek envoy Megasthenes described. The Kautilya sayings are thus early, and may be genuine.

They are here retranslated from the edition of Kande, in their probable original order. Their comparative value is suggested by quotations from contemporary Chinese political theoreticians.

Argument
- Preface (With Links To Detailed Argument)
- Detailed Contents Page
Kautilya's Maxims
- Overview of the Kautilya Maxims
- The Maxims for Consecutive Reading
Afterword and Apparatus
- Epitome of Kautilya
- Order of Citation of pre-Kautilya Authorities
- Chinese Statecraft Passages Mentioned in Commentary
- Works Cited