Fwd: The names cANakya and Kautilya

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INDOLOGY , " lsrinivas " <lsrinivas> wrote:

Despite much discussion in the literature, the names are not

satisfactorily derived. I surveyed literature on this a few years

ago.

 

If one were to consider cANakya as a patronymic deriving from caNaka

(Sanskrit for chickpeas), one seems to be on strong ground as Monier

Williams and other lexicons seem to mention it.

 

That leaves us with the name kautilya. The vowels of these names are

rather problematic. Take the second vowel for instance. It is

variously 'i' or 'a'. The 'i' form seems to have no other origination

except MudrArAkSasa's pat 'kauTilyah kuTilamatih' characterization

which is essentially a backformation. The second vowel as 'a' seems

not very uncommon either. Abhidanacintamani etc give it

as 'kauTalya'. Even a 11th century manuscript found in a Jaina

bhandar consulted by R P Kangle seems to like the 'a' form.(cf

Kangle's Preface to Vol 1 of his Arthasastra translation).

 

 

It is however clear that the name kautilya is a foreign one,

definitely not Sanskrit. That is why there is so much confusion with

respect to vowels in the root syllables.

 

If one were to consider the onomastic aspect of caNaka, it certainly

points southward since naming after fruit, vegetables, foodstuffs etc

is a distinct southern practice. At least it is not a very strongly

Indo Aryan practice (cf Hilka, Beitraege zur kenntnis der Indische

Namengebung: Altindische Personennamen).

 

This kind of onomastics is followed even now in rural Karnataka where

names likes uLLi (onion), meNasinakAyi (chillies) etc are not at all

uncommon. Or Andhra, for example, where last names like zonthi

(asafoetida), vepa (neem) etc are not uncommon. This practice is

certainly attested in Classical Tamil literature too where names

plants, roots etc were used.

 

If you kick this idea round a bit, one can see that the Tamil etymon

kaTalai (chickpeas) (or kannada kaDale) can well be the basis of this

acharya's father's name. The son of kaTalai can then be Sankritized

to kATalya. From kATalya to kauTalya is but a step. This is certainly

aided by the fact that in some Indian scripts, the vowel mark

for 'au' is differentiated from that for the dirgha 'a' just by a

curvy bulge.

 

This makes cANakya just a loan translation. One can see that after a

period of using the original form of the name kauTilya/kauTalya, the

sources pretty much start using cANakya too interchangeably.

MudrArAkSasa uses both. It is also interesting to note that this

name is a hapax i.e., a standalone occurrence not used before or

after for anyone else in literature.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Lakshmi Srinivas

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