Chāṇakya (Kauṭilya)
A figure from the books
#Chanakya
Chāṇakya (Kauṭilya) · trad. c. 375–283 BCE
In the books · 2 chapters
Who this is
Statecraft — the tradition's supreme king-maker, and the name fused to the Arthaśāstra, ancient India's manual of political power.
“No contemporary source so much as names Chāṇakya, and modern scholarship says he did not write the book attributed to him — and none of that has dented him, because the legend of the humiliated teacher who answered an insult by manufacturing an emperor is one of the most consequential stories India ever told itself.”
The big idea, in the book's words:
“The state is not a mystery or an inheritance; it is a machine, and a machine can be studied, built, and — if you are patient and utterly unsentimental — rebuilt with a different king inside. Power yields to method.”
From the books
- The Great IndiansChāṇakya (Kauṭilya) is Chapter 34 of Vol 1, The Vedic Age and the Age of Ferment.
- The Great PhilosophersChāṇakya (Kauṭilya) is Chapter 29 of Vol 1, The Ancient World.
Read the chapters
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