Kautilya's Maxims
3
Achieving Civic Order
(ArS 1/4:5-10)

Ancient Teachers: The King who wishes to bring about civic order should keep the rod raised to strike. There is no better means than the rod to bring people under control.

Kautilya: No. A King who is severe with the rod is feared by the people; a King who spares the rod is despised by the people. It is one who is just with the rod who is respected.

A concept of public justice is gaining ground against a previously autocratic ethos.

Just this position - that the King's power depends in part on how he is viewed by those to whom that power applies, and that severity alone will not make his position as ruler secure - was reached in the Chinese statecraft debates of the middle and late 04c. See for example the Confucian view of excessively draconic punishments in LY 12:19.

 

Kautilya's Maxims is Copyright © 2001- by E Bruce and A Taeko Brooks

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