Kautilya's Maxims
12
Detecting Peculation
(ArS 2/9:10-12)

The Teachers: If one with a small income makes large expenditures, he is using revenues that belong to the state. In the reverse case, when he spends in conformity with his income, he is not doing this.

Kautilya: This can only be detected by spies.

Spending in excess of income is still the standard indication of peculation. It can however take an audit to uncover it.

This and Maxim #13 are now located in a long section (ArS 2) describing the duties of the bureaucrats in great detail. Except for these two passages, ArS 2 contains no Kautilya maxims, and that book is best regarded as a later expansion, beyond the limits of Kautilya's own thought and experience. Maxims #12-13 do not use the word "officer," and it may be presumed that in Kautilya's time bureaucrats were not yet distinguished from the lower ministers.

 

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