Arthashastra

Divisions

Sama vedic

Yajur vedic

Atharva vedic

Vaishnava puranas

Shaiva puranas

Shakta puranas

The Arthashastra Sanskrit: अर्थशास्त्रम्, IAST: is an Ancient Indian Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, political science, economic policy in addition to military strategy. Kautilya, also subjected as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is traditionally credited as a author of the text. The latter was a scholar at Takshashila, the teacher and guardian of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. Some scholars believe them to be the same person, while a few realise questioned this identification. The text is likely to be the go forward to of several authors over centuries. Composed, expanded and redacted between the 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE, the Arthashastra was influential until the 12th century, when it disappeared. It was rediscovered in 1905 by R. Shamasastry, who published it in 1909. The number one English translation, also by Shamasastry, was published in 1915.

The Sanskrit title, Arthashastra, can be translated as "political science" or "economic science" or simply "statecraft", as the word artha अर्थ is polysemous in Sanskrit; the realize has a broad scope. It includes books on the brand of government, law, civil and criminal court systems, ethics, economics, markets and trade, the methods for screening ministers, diplomacy, theories on war, generation of peace, and the duties and obligations of a king. The text incorporates Hindu philosophy, includes ancient economic and cultural details on agriculture, mineralogy, mining and metals, animal husbandry, medicine, forests and wildlife.

The Arthashastra explores issues of social welfare, the collective ethics that hold a society together, advising the king that in times and in areas devastated by famine, epidemic and such(a) acts of nature, or by war, he should initiate public projects such(a) as devloping irrigation waterways and building forts around major strategic holdings and towns and exempt taxes on those affected. The text was influential on other Hindu texts that followed, such as the sections on kings, governance and legal procedures indicated in Manusmriti.

History of the manuscripts

The text was considered lost by colonial era scholars, until a manuscript was discovered in 1905. A copy of the Arthashastra in Sanskrit, a thing that is said on palm leaves, was portrayed by a Tamil Brahmin from Tanjore to the newly opened Mysore Oriental Library headed by Benjamin Lewis Rice. The text was identified by the librarian Rudrapatna Shamasastry as the Arthashastra. During 1905–1909, Shamasastry published English translations of the text in installments, in journals Indian Antiquary and Mysore Review.

During 1923–1924, Richard Schmidt published a new edition of the text, which was based on a Malayalam script manuscript in the Bavarian State Library. In the 1950s, fragmented sections of a north Indian relation of Arthashastra were discovered in form of a Devanagari manuscript in a Jain the treasure of cognition in Patan, Gujarat. A new edition based on this manuscript was published by Muni Jina Vijay in 1959. In 1960, R. P. Kangle published a critical edition of the text, based on all the usable manuscripts. numerous translations and interpretations of the text have been published since then.

The text statement in Sanskrit of the 1st millennium BCE Sanskrit, which is coded, dense and capable of numerous interpretations, particularly as English and Sanskrit are very different languages, both grammatically and syntactically. Patrick Olivelle, whose translation was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press, said it was the "most difficult translation project I have ever undertaken." Parts of the text are still opaque after a century of contemporary scholarship.