Kautilya's Maxims
9
Testing the Integrity of Ministers
(ArS 1/10:16-17)

The Teachers: He should appoint ministers who have passed tests of their intentions, and the trial by fear, to duties appropriate to their integrity.

Kautilya: However, under no circumstances must the King make himself or the Queen a target in order to ascertain the probity of ministers.

Some tests, like the one laid out in ArS 1/10:3, evidently envisioned temptations, suggested by secret agents, to seize power from the King. Kautilya issues a warning against this kind of jeopardy. Compare the same stance in Maxim #6, on testing the heir apparent.

Apart from the tail of Maxim #8, this is the only ArS Kautilya maxim in sloka form. It is part of a series of slokas at the end of ArS 1/10, and we assume that, with the following 1/10:18-20, it is original material later versified, and not a later verse interpolation. See our separate textual Argument.

 

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