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L.K. Jha: Department of Forestry, NEHU, Mizoram Campus, Aizawl, India
K.N. Jha: Bhagalpur University, Bihar, India
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The authors are grateful to the learned translators Dr R. Shamasastry, Professor V. Gairola and others. On the basis of their translation this paper has been written.
Introduction
Kautilya's Arthasastra (Kautilya's economics) was written in sutra (prose poem) style. The work claims to date from the period 321-296bc and its archaic style is well in agreement with the claim (Fleet, 1914). Indian epigraphical researches also prove that Kautilya wrote Arthasastra, somewhere between 321 and 300bc (Fleet, 1914). Nitisara was written by Kamadaka around ad800 and the author of the book acknowledged his indebtedness to Chanakya (Kautilya) (Sharma, 1968). Professor Bhatnagar opined "Kautilya was well known to all sorts and conditions of literates from 200bc down to the fifteenth century ad" (Bhandarkar, 1925 p. 205). Chanakya examined views of his predecessor and set forth his valuable opinion on economic management in ancient India. Indeed, he founded a school, which was paid due homage by Indian scholars, administrators and planners for a long time. During Mughal and a large part of the British rule the importance of this treatise gradually diminished. Scholars of the present century could know the worth of the Arthasastra after publication of the first English translation in 1915 by Dr R. Shamasastry. Sanskrit translation in 1929 by Mahamahopadhyaya J, Ganpati Sastri, Russian translation in 1959 by Kayanov, Hindi translation in 1962 by V. Gairola and English translation in the year 1965 by R.P. Kangle (Jha and Jha, 1996). The Chanakya's Arthasastra divided into 15 books and contains 150 chapters. Megasthenes, the Greek writer, visited India during this period and his contribution has some similarities and dissimilarities with the Chanakya's "Economics". Professor Jolly opined "the idealising tendency in Megasthenes greatly impairs the trustworthiness of his statement" (Bhandarkar, 1925,p. 248). Regarding dissimilarities in the contribution of the two contemporaries, Vincent Smith stated "It is not desirable to amalgamate the rules laid down in the Arthasastra with the descriptions recorded by the Greeks, because the latter presented to us the impressions made upon foreign observers of institutions actually existing at a particular period of time at the foundation of the Maurya empire, whereas the former expresses the arrangements favoured...