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Mauryan ringstone, Northwest Pakistan, 3rd century BCE. (British Museum, London)
Arthashastra, Duties of a King
(c. fourth century B.C.)
Arthashastra, Duties of a King
(c. fourth century B.C.)
BACKGROUND: The Arthashastra (roughly, “science of politics”) has often been attributed to Chānaka (c.350-283 B.C.), a prime minister of Chandragupta Maurya during the early phases of the Mauryan Empire. The text is very broad-ranging, covering issues ranging from war making to law enforcement, the conservation of forests, economic policy, the use of spies, and the education of future leaders. The excerpt below is one of the few references to religion from the text.
BOOK XI, "THE CONDUCT OF CORPORATIONS,"
CHAPTER I. CAUSES OF DISSENSION; AND SECRET PUNISHMENT
The corporations of warriors...live by agriculture, trade, and wielding weapons. ...
Spies, gaining access to all these corporations and finding out jealousy, hatred and other causes of quarrel among them, should sow the seeds of a well-planned dissension among them. ... Spies, under the guise of teachers should cause childish embroils among those of mutual enmity on occasions of disputations about certain points of science, arts, gambling or sports. Fiery spies may occasion quarrel among the leaders of corporations by praising inferior leaders in taverns and theatres; or pretending to be friends, they may excite ambition in the minds of princes by praising their high birth, though they (the princes) are low-born...
...This explains the method of sowing the seeds of dissension in camps and among wild tribes.
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