Some Interesting and Lesser Known Facts About Chanakya

“Just as a mirror reflects a man's face his personality is reflected in his choice of friends. One must always be careful in forming friendships and acquaintances, for one’s friends, are in a way, an extension of one’s inner inclinations and tendencies.” ~ Chanakya

The Man With Three Names

Chanakya or Kautilya or Vishnugupta, a man, three names and numerous achievements from being the teacher of Chandragupta Maurya (r. c. 321-c.297 BCE) and to help him to establish the Mauryan Empire (322-185 BCE) to be the greatest scholar who has been made outstanding work in the field of political science. 

Transforming Chandragupta From Citizen To Monarch

He is the author of the best book in the field of Indian politics that is Arthashastra.
There had been many references to Chanakya and many stories related to him. The most famous story is that when Chanakya was a scholar of Taxila, he did a visit to the court of Dhanananda, who insulted him before his court and thus he made a single monotonic goal of his life to take the revenge of his insult and to tech the ruler a lesson thus in order to do so, he transformed Chandragupta from a citizen to a monarch. 

The Book of Transformation

It has also been said that the Arthashastra is the road map or book of transformation which completely transforms Chandragupta from a common man to a king. Arthashastra continues to guide the Gupta dynasty until or unless Ashoka the great change his heart and converted himself into Buddhism.

Arthashastra belongs to the tradition of dharma shastra. It primarily focuses on the issue of statecraft moreover it considers dharma as its key component while ruling. 

Chanakya defines statecraft as Arthashastra in his word where the term “art” denotes material well-being. he firmly believes that a king's objective should be on the material well-being of its citizen so that their life could become better. 

He further asserted that material well-being is the uppermost, and the other goals such as DHARMA, KAMA, MOKSH all depend upon material well-being. 

Arthashastra is also unique in many aspects, as it is the first geo-political textbook it lays down that a king should focus on the expansion of his territory as a kingdom does not expand it will go on the position of deteriorating.

He Believed in Realism

Chanakya was a realist more than anyone else, he believes that no one is a friend, a person is either our enemy or our pretending to be our friend, thus the interrelationship between 2 states are the relation of war and struggle for power. 

The realist thinkers believe that in international politics one nation is either in a state of war or preparing for war.

Chanakya belongs to the offensive realism school of thought thus, he does believe in the power of realization rather than defense, for the offensive realist, “offense is the best defense”. 

Kautilya prepare a set of norms for the king is RAJA DHARMA, in which he wrote about the duties of the king and what he ought to do to become a CHAKRAVARTI, he made a detailed illustration of how the administration work should be carried out and what is the measure the king must take in order to provide the overall growth to their people.

Kautilya was not only a great scholar but he does also a great strategist who, knew a lot about the war and classify them into different categories. He mainly classifies war as; PARKRMA YUDDHA, KOOT YUDDHA, USHIN BUDDHA.

Kautilya also give the systematic arrangement of the state where he shows the 7 key elements of a state;-

1. King - according to Kautilya king is the center of the state where he controls every aspect of life, and he must look into the other 6 elements of the state.

2. Senior Ministers;- as per the Kautilya view the ministers are important as they are the representative of the king and they help the king to rule over the empire.

3. Forts- Kautilya believe that the fort is important as it is the symbol of offense and defense of the state.

4. City – where common people live and conduct their day-to-day business, it is very important as it provides economical resources.

5. Military Strength’- the military is important as the relationship between any two-state is the struggle for power.

6. Treasury- it is important as it would help to fulfill the routine expenditure and also meet the emergency expenditure.

7. Ally – Kautilya believes that friends have only symbolic importance and that is you are strong. Everyone wants to be the friend of a strong king.

Written By - Shivam Jha

Edited By - Akash Verma