After ensuring that one of the greatest global treatises on statecraft and economic policy was reinstated for posterity, the Oriental Research Institute (ORI) in Mysore was on the verge of losing the original draft of Kautilya-Chanakya's Arthashastra, the art of politics and good statecrat. It was falling victim to maladministration and the vagaries of time, said The Times of India in 2011.

The discovery of a draft of this unique 4th century BC work from out of a heap of palm-leaf manuscripts, by scholar Rudrapatnam Shamasastry, who published it in 1909, resulted in historians all over the world acknowledging that India had an enviable textual history.

A century later the ancient manuscript was peeling off. It was in great danger, and there was not even a locker to keep it safe. It was merely wrapped in a cloth and placed in a cabinet. There was a lone guard who kept watch at night at the institute. There were no fireproof chambers, even though fire accidents had occurred twice due to short circuits.

A fumigation machine donated by the Ford Foundation to protect manuscripts from insects, fungi and algae was not working, as there were insufficient funds to maintain it. Oil treatment was being used to preserve the institute's rare manuscripts, but that too was proving futile.

In 2012, the US government donated $50,000 for the institute's renovation, and heroic measures are now being taken to preserve ORI's rare manuscripts. That most of these were written on palm leaves is an indication of their fragility. It is a miracle that so many have survived.

This unique treatise places the sub-continent fair and square in the midst of a greatness that precedes all other works on statecraft which came much later. This is indeed an achievement that beggars all comparison. Its vast scope and breadth of vision are startling and refreshing. It was written 1200 years before Machiavelli's work on the subject and is more philosophically mature.

Kautilya's early life is shrouded in mystery, as is that of his great protege, the emperor Chandragupta Maurya. No one is sure about his place of birth, but it could have been Taxila (then Takshashila), which makes him a Punjabi. We also know that he studied at Takshashila and later taught there, which meant that he had enough influence to get Chandragupta Maurya admitted to such a prestigious centre of learning.

At one stage of his life he served at the Nanda court in Maghad, where he was treated very unfairly and vowed vengeance. This he was able to achieve once Chandragupta at the amazingly young age of 20 was able to grapple with a powerful royal kingdom.

Kautilya became Chandragupta's Prime Minister, and his Arthashastra, all fifteen books of it, gives a glimpse into the tremendous political strategies with which he helped his student govern wisely and well over a vast territory. His work covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from the training of a prince to wildlife and forests. The economic ideas contained within the book are an indication of how serious the author was in his higher purpose, as it provides clear and precise prescriptions on how to run a state.

Roger Boesche, the Arthur G. Coons Distinguished Professor of the History of Ideas at the Occidental College in Los Angeles, and Barak Obama's favourite professor, in his book on Chanakya-Kautilya, The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and his Arthashastra, describes the Arthashastra as "a book of political realism, a book analysing how the political world does work, and not very often stating how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve the state and the common good."

The social scientist Max Weber felt that compared to the Arthashastra, Machiavelli's The Prince is harmless.

Kautilya argues how in an autocracy an efficient and solid economy can be managed. The ethics of economics and a king's duties and obligations are discussed in great detail. But beyond statecraft the book presents an entire legal and bureaucratic framework for administering a kingdom. What is far more attractive than dry-as-dust economics is Kautilya's wealth of descriptive cultural detail about mineralogy, mining and metals, agriculture, animal husbandry, medicine and the use of wildlife. His examines the collective ethics that hold a society together.

Roger Boesche begins his study of Kautilya by asking whether there is any other book that talks so openly about "when using violence is justified. When killing domestic opponents is wise." Kautilya also asks when the king should use secret agents, and when he needs to sacrifice those very agents. Women and children can be used as spies and even assassins. When should a nation violate a treaty and invade its neighbours? The king can also spy on his own people when necessary, and can test his ministers and even his own family members to see if they are worthy of trust. Chandragupta's grandson Ashoka the Great must have recalled this question when faced with treachery within his own family, which he eliminated without turning a hair. He was, until his conversion to Buddhism, a ruthless follower of Kautilya's advice.

Can a king kill his own son who is heir to the throne? Ask the Mughals that question. How does one protect a king from poison? Kautilya had his own remedies for this very situation. One's own wife can be a potential murderer, observes Kautilya, and then asks when torture can be justified. "At some point every reader wonders: Is there not one question that Kautilya found immoral, too terrible to ask in a book? No, not one. And this is what brings a frightful chill. But this is also why Kautilya was the first great, unrelenting political realist." (No wonder Barak Obama found Boesche to be such a stimulating teacher, though for 30 years he did nurse a grudge against his mentor for awarding him a B grade!)

It is Book XIV of the Arthshastra which most lay readers will find the most entertaining. In it the use of rare poisons and spells is described with great enthusiasm.

For example: The application of the paste prepared from gunja seeds kept for seven nights in the mouth of a white cobra or a house lizard brings on leprosy, while the pastry prepared from chironjia sapida is a remedy for the dread ailment.

Having pulled out both the right and the left eyeballs of a cat, camel, wolf, boar, porcupine, crow and owl, one should reduce them to two kinds of powder. Whoever anoints his eyes with these powders following a certain ritual will clearly see things even in the pitch dark.

But the remedy for invisibility is the best of all, using the skull of a man who has been killed with a weapon or hung on the gallows and filling it with soil and barley seeds, irrigated with the milk of goats and sheep. Putting on a garland made from the sprouts of this barley crop will make you invisible.

And then a noxious mixture wetted with human blood causes consumption.

From the verdant hills and woods of Taxila where the Arthashastra was composed in the 4th century BC, to Macbeth's blasted heath 2,000 years later, requires a tremendous imaginative leap, with the three weird sisters cavorting and chanting:

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

Wool of bat and tongue of dog,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Fire burn and cauldron bubble...

Black magic, it seems, knows no limits or boundaries!

The Arthashastra is a profound depiction of life in Chandragupta's times. Here we find compassion for the poor, for servants and slaves, and for women. Land reform is advocated, and so is the concept of the protection of the chastity of female servants or prisoners. The role of Dharma is discussed in detail, and the welfare of a kingdom's subjects, as well as the alleviation of hardship in times of disasters such as floods and famine.

The qualities and disciplines required for a wise and virtuous king are emphasised, wherein he should have self-control, should promote the security and welfare of his subjects, and improve his own discipline by continuing to acquire learning in all branches of knowledge. He must also be ever-active in the management of his kingdom's economy. War and the modes of dealing with invaders are also treated in exhaustive detail. There is no aspect of life for an ideal ruler that is ignored, from the personal to the public.

To return to the custom of using poison in various spheres of life, described with great relish by Kautilya. When he was Chandragupta Maurya's Chief Adminstrator he would add small amounts of poison to the king's food to make him grow immune to it. One day, the chief queen, Durdha, shared the king's food while she was pregnant, and died. Kautilya made a heroic dcision to save the child's life and performed the world's first Ceasarian operation by cutting open the queen's belly and taking out the baby. A drop or bindu of poison fell onto the baby's head and hence Kautilya named him Bindusara. Later he was to become Bindusara's Prime Minister, after Chandragupta gave up his throne to his son Bindusara and followed the Jain saint Bhadrabahu to Karnataka, and eventually died of voluntary starvation according to Jain custom.

Kautilya stayed on in the court at Pataliputra and served as an able advisor. There was a minister, Subandhu, who hated him and who raked up the old tale of the circumstances of Bindusara's birth, alleging that Kautilya had murdered his mother. Some cunning nurses present at the birth also confirmed this story, and the king was enraged. Upon hearing of this, Kautilya decided to prepare for his end. He donated all his wealth to the poor and placed himself upon a dung heap, intending to die by total abstinence from food and drink. In the meantime Bindusara had heard the full story and rushed to Kautilya to beg his forgiveness. Kautilya accepted the king's pleas but remained on his dung heap, which was surreptitiously set on fire by Subandhu, by placing a burning piece of coal under the dung heap. So this became Kautilya's funeral pyre. Subandhu was put to death by a grieving Bindusara, and thus ended the eventful career of one of the ancient world's greatest intellectuals. Here one is reminded of Cardinal Wolsey's bitter comments on King Henry VIII's sudden aversion towards him who was once one of his favourites:

'Put not your trust in princes'

Comments (4 comments)

It always pleasantly amazes me and fills a void in my understanding of our heritage- how great and advanced our civilization was( compare that with our present day LUTERE and FIZOOL ke politicians). It is brought to us thru your respectable journalism. I can't thank you enough. Sethi sahib, if you happen to come to USA, I would like to shake your hand and would like you to be guest of our book club, in Detroit, Michigan.

Posted: Thursday, February 07, 2013 by Ramesh Mohindra from USA

Kautilya/s ideas of statecraft are not valid in modern age. Great emperor Ashoka showed the way for following of Dharma and benign welfare state firmly grounded on morality . His rock edicts which has survived the vestiges of time depict that sovereignty of emperor rests on adherence to Dharma and moral principles and not on exercise of despotic power

Posted: Friday, February 01, 2013 by Rajeev Nidumolu from San Francisco

Chanakya is not a Punjabi. He is from Patna, Bihar. Please read about Chankya Tele Serial produced in India in early 1990s. They give very exhaustive list of references and sources.

Posted: Friday, February 01, 2013 by Gopala Krishna from Toronto

Al right, let The great Kautilya be claimed by Pakistanis as their own! He was one of remarkable men in the history of India.

Posted: Friday, February 01, 2013 by Kamath from Canada