Fwd: Who has written Artha sastra ?

[Guest guest]

, " kishore patnaik " <kishorepatnaik09

wrote:

 

Some years ago, I have started a thread as to who has written the Artha

Sastra.

 

 

 

While there are certain internal evidences as to the authorship of

canakya/kautilya/vsnuchitta, there is no conclusive proof as to whether AS

was written by a person who is connected with CGM. This becomes more

important if you notice the kind of kingdom described by AS and that

Majumdar says chandra gupta maurya did not build a very huge kingdom as

being believed now. It is a small kingdom,probably survived due to the

stratagem of canakya and opportunistic love-hate relationship with

neighbouring kingdoms.

 

 

 

This is when, the dating of CGM itself is inconclusive and the identity of

later famous kings as Asoka is also uncertain. (This may not be accepted by

some, the latest Dr Ranjit pal's book tries to address this problem- one of

the possibilities, personally unacceptable to me- is to identify Asoka with

Darius I)

 

 

 

Kautilya seemed to have come from South India, perhaps from Andhra, a

Brahmin with a front tuft, born in either Kanchivaram of Tamil Nadu or Kanchi

of Andhra Pradesh. He is also called Angula, Dramila (incidentally, Dramila

indicates Dravidian) How ever, some argue that he is a jain from Punjab.

 

 

 

The author's connection with the gotra of Kutila or with later writers such

as Mukaraksa mostly go unestablished.

 

 

 

However, AS is certainly famous and had been discussed variously in the

later classical texts including Pancatantra.

 

 

 

Puranas also discuss him, while it is Mudra rakshasa, the famous classical

drama by Visakadatta, but again, Canakya and Visakadatta are separated by

more than 1000 years in timeline.

 

 

 

The Jain traditions discuss how the royal sign of a teeth of Canakya was

broken so that he may not become a king in his later life. Brahatkatha Kosh,

cxliii, 5 discusses how he has married a girl called Yasomati and was

instrumental in the downfall of Nanda's kingdom. It ia again another

curiosity that Jainism was never mentioned in AS.

 

 

 

 

kishore patnaik

 

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