Kautilya's Maxims
25
Policy Options
(ArS 7/1:2-5)

The Teachers: The six policy options are: peace, war, holding steady, attacking, alliance, or pursuing some combination of these.

Vatavyadhi: There are only two: all the "six" can be derived from the two options of peace and war.

Kautilya: There are really six, because of situational differences.

Here as in Maxim #1, Kautilya resists conceptual simplification. It is easy to agree with Vatavyadhi (and with Kangle ad loc, who finds "some truth" in his view) that war and peace are the basic situations. But Kautilya's point still holds: there are varieties and combinations which make it necessary not to limit discussion to just those options. Note for example the contrast between a general state of war (vigraha, option #2) and a limited military maneuver for local advantage (yâna, option #4). Note also that Kautilya agrees with the earlier view that a peace policy does not exclude a war policy, hence the option (#6) of simultaneously pursuing both. Policy options are best if not reduced to their extremes.

The preceding chapter, ArS 6, expounds the schematic "mandala" theory of twelve surrounding kings and the possible dynamic relations between them. It never cites Kautilya. The mandala chapter was in all probability a theoretical refinement added later to ArS. The first line of ArS 7 links the mandala theory to the ensuing discussion. That ensuing discussion, constituting the bulk of ArS 7, is based at many points on Kautilya maxims, and has a simpler theoretical basis. ArS 7/1:1 is thus a bridging passage, and ArS 7/1:2, with which the above passage begins, was the beginning of the original Arthashâstra treatment of policy.

 

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