Kautilya · AuthorAuthor
Kautilya
Ancient Indian minister and political thinker traditionally credited with the Arthashastra
About Kautilya
Kautilya, also identified in tradition with Chanakya and Vishnugupta, is said to have been a Brahmin minister who helped Chandragupta Maurya overthrow the Nanda dynasty and found the Mauryan Empire around 320 BCE. The surviving text of the Arthashastra names Kautilya as its author, but modern scholars generally regard it as a composite work, compiled and revised over several centuries. Whatever its authorship, it is the most important surviving ancient Indian treatise on statecraft.
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The ArthashastraKautilya
c. 2nd century BCE – 3rd century CE · Ancient · Political Theory
The Arthashastra, the 'science of material gain' or of statecraft, is a vast Sanskrit treatise on how a king should acquire, protect and govern territory. Written mostly in prose with occasional verses, it is divided into fifteen books and some 150 chapters, and covers almost every aspect of administration with remarkable detail and an unsentimental realism that has led to comparisons with Machiavelli.