| Publisher: Agam Kala Prakashan, Delhi | |
| Author Prashant Srivastava | |
| Language: English | |
| Pages: 262 | |
| Cover: HARDCOVER | |
| 24 cm x 16.5 cm (9.5x6.5 inch) | |
| Weight 590 gm | |
| Edition: 2026 | |
| ISBN: 9789392556838 |
The Vision of Pre-Kautilya Thinkers- A Study Based on the Kautiliyam
1.1. The Arthasastra Tradition
1.1.1. Arthasastra, the science of politics, is known by various names-kshatravidya, dandaniti, rajaniti, nitisastra, rajaśastra rajavidya rajadharma and 1 The term occurs as early as the Chhandogyopanishad 7. 1. 2. It has been translated as 'the science of politics' by Srisa Chandra Vasu (Chhandogyopanishad, translated by Srisa Chandra Vasu as Chhandoga Upanisad. Sacred Books of the Hindus 3, (Allahabad. 1910), pp. 453-454), and as 'the science of government' by Patrick Olivelle (The Early Upanisads Annotated Text and Translation, (Oxford University Press. 1998), pp. 258-259).
2 Mahabharata, (Critical edition) 12. 59. 78; Arthasastra 1. 2. 1.
3 Mahabharata, (Critical edition) 7. 127. 19; 12. 38. 9.
4 Mahabharata, (Critical edition) 12. 58. 3.
5 Mahabharata, (Critical edition) 6. 31. 2.
6 Mahabharata, (Critical edition) 12. 56. 3. As early as 1959, UN Ghoshal (A History of Indian Political Ideas (The Ancient Period and the Period of Transition to the Middle Ages), (Oxford University Press. 1959), p. 82) had referred to two approaches to statecraft in ancient India. One is rajadharma, 'the law for kings', which deals with statecraft as 'an incident in a comprehensive scheme of caste duties deriving their source primarily from the eternal Vedas'. The other approach 'concerns itself as a rule with the inductive investigation of the phenomena of the State'. This echoes in the statement of Hartmut Scharfe (The State in Indian Tradition, (Leiden. 1989), p. 215): Arthasastra differs from rajadharma, in that while the latter focusses on the scheme of class duties, and brings out the psychology of politics, the former is practical and empirical, and nripasastra, of which kshatravidya is believed to be the oldest; however, it was soon superseded by dandaniti. D R Bhandarkar regards arthasastra as a part of dandaniti. U N Ghoshalt suggests that dandanīti was originally a branch of the more comprehensive science of arthasastra, but the distinction between arthasastra and dandaniti was, later on, obliterated, as, for example, in the Mahabharata and in Vijnanesvara's commentary on Yajnvalkyasmriti 1. 313.12
