The Arthashastra

In Our Time: Philosophy

BBC

History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2022

⏱️ 57 minutes

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Summary

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

Transcript

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0:25.8	Chapter four.
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0:44.8	I hope you enjoyed the programs.
0:46.6	Hello, the ancient Indian Sanskrit text, the Ota Shastra, has been compared to the
0:51.8	work of Machiavelli.
0:52.8	Its origins are uncertain, but what is clear is that it was designed to be part of a practical
0:57.7	manual for statecraft.
0:59.9	It tells a rule on how to govern his territory, how to achieve stability and prosperity,
1:04.4	and how to conduct relations with other parts in the process that gives us an insight into
1:08.6	the lives of people in South Asia more than 2,000 years ago.
1:12.7	Yet the text only came into the hands of Western scholars at the start of the 20th century.
1:17.6	Let me do this with the Ota Shastra and James Higgity, Professor of Sanskrit and Indian
1:22.4	Religion at Cardiff University, Devon Patel, Associate Professor of South Asia Studies
	...

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