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The Arthashastra

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Indian Sanskrit text the Arthashastra.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit text the Arthashastra, regarded as one of the major works of Indian literature. Written in the style of a scientific treatise, it provides rulers with a guide on how to govern their territory and sets out what the structure, economic policy and foreign affairs of the ideal state should be. According to legend, it was written by Chanakya, a political advisor to the ruler Chandragupta Maurya (reigned 321 – 297 BC) who founded the Mauryan Empire, the first great Empire in the Indian subcontinent. As the Arthashastra asserts that a ruler should pursue his goals ruthlessly by whatever means is required, it has been compared with the 16th-century work The Prince by Machiavelli. Today, it is widely viewed as presenting a sophisticated and refined analysis of the nature, dynamics and challenges of rulership, and scholars value it partly because it undermines colonial stereotypes of what early South Asian society was like.

With

Jessica Frazier
Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

James Hegarty
Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Religions at Cardiff University

And

Deven Patel
Associate Professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Available now

56 minutes

Last on

Thu 3 Mar 2022 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

CONTRIBUTORS








READING LIST

Roger Boesche, The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra (Lexington Books, 2002)

Wendy Doniger, Against Dharma: Dissent in the Ancient Indian Sciences of Sex and Politics (Yale University Press, 2018)

KauαΉ­alya (trans. L. N. Rangarajan), The Arthashastra (Penguin, 1992)

Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India (Routledge, 2016)

Mark McClish and Patrick Olivelle, The Arthasastra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on Statecraft (Hackett, 2012)

Mark McClish, The History of the Arthaśāstra: Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India (Cambridge University Press, 2019)

Patrick Olivelle, King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya's Arthasastra (Oxford University Press, 2013)


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  • Thu 3 Mar 2022 09:00
  • Thu 3 Mar 2022 21:30

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