The Ingenious ‘Upayas’ In The Arthashastra Could Still Be Used In Administration Today By Sumedha Verma Ojha

Snapshot

• The management of foreign policy and external relations could well take a leaf out of the Arthashastra and use all the four devices or ‘upayas’ to achieve diplomatic objectives.

In an earlier article on the Arthashastra, ‘artha’ was explained as one of the goals of individual human existence. Understood in an extended universal sense, it assumes the form of the desire for well-being in general, which can be made possible only by the state. The state has the two-fold aim of palana (administration) and labha (acquisition of territory) if this well-being is to be achieved.

In the context of the second of these two aims, Kautilya’s Arthashastra deals with defence and external relations of the state at length. Defence and foreign relations are intertwined; if the vijigishu, the all-conquering king with a powerful army (as envisaged in the Arthashastra), wants to extend his territory and expand his influence — how should he interact with other states? Foreign policy is summed up in the famous ‘rajamandala’ theory, which details the way to conduct relations with each type of constituent of the ‘circle of kings’. These relations are established and carried on with the help of envoys, and policies can be classified into six gunas; sandhi (the policy of peace), vigraha (the policy of hostility), asana (the policy of remaining quiet), yana (marching on an expedition), sanshraya (seeking shelter) and dvaidhibhava (combined policy of sandhi and vigraha).

Intimately connected with these are the four means, or upayas, which can be used to make an antagonist bend to the will of the vijigishu; saman, dana, danda and bheda, translated as conciliation, gifts, dissension and force. They appear to be even more ancient than the concept of the six gunas and more universal in their application, although there are clear similarities between them and the gunas. Saman is a policy of peace similar to sandhi, danda is vigraha combined with yana.

The gunas are applicable only to foreign policy while upayas have a wider application and can be used to secure the submission of anyone, be it a recalcitrant son, brother or kinsman, or a rebellious chief, a neighbouring prince or foreign chieftain. It is mostly bheda and, tangentially, the other three upayas that we shall look at here, leaving other topics for a future exposition.

The upayas are defined in Book Two.

Saman or ‘conciliation’ can be achieved in five ways, praising merits, mention of relationships, pointing out of mutual benefits, showing advantages and placing oneself at the other’s disposal.

Dana consists of conferring benefits of money.

Bheda or ‘dissension’ is creating apprehension and reprimanding.

Danda or ‘force’ is killing, tormenting and seizure of property.

Each earlier one in this group is less forceful than the succeeding ones. Conciliation is one-fold; gifts are two-fold, being preceded by conciliation; dissension is three-fold, being preceded by conciliation and gifts. Force is four-fold, being preceded by all the other three. This is the natural order of using these means — saman, dana, bheda and danda. However, they can be used in many combinations — as per the situation— and against the natural order, if necessary.

Using the means singly and in different combinations yield 15 ways of using them in the natural order and a similar number of ways of using them against the natural order; 30 combinations in all!

They are to be used as per the situation and the targeted party — saman could be best for enemy officers mistrusted by their king, dana for winning over the treacherous from their sovereign, bheda would break up confederacies most effectively while danda should be used against a stronger enemy.

Although all the means are discussed in the text, it is bheda which crops up the most often, in keeping with Kautilya’s predilection for intrigue and espionage. Sowing dissension through the spy network and then reaping the benefits is a cheap and bloodless way of conquest, saving the kosh or the ‘treasury of the state’ for other uses. This upaya is discussed mainly in Books 7, 9, 11 and 12. We shall consider all of these keeping the most detailed, Book 11, for the last.

Book Seven, which discusses the measures of foreign policy, also has a discussion on the means of achieving these through the means or upayas. When in conflict, saman and dana should be used against weak kings and bheda and danda against stronger kings. If the opposition consists of a confederacy of kings, bheda is but the most natural method of breaking up this enemy confederacy.

A most interesting example of the breakup of a confederacy is found in the Mudrarakshasa, a historical play written by Shudraka in the fifth century CE, about the ascension of Chandragupta Maurya to the throne of Pataliputra and its aftermath. Faced with a confederation of five kings led by the Paurava Malayketu, ready to march against the newly-installed Chandragupta and reinforced by the defection of the former Prime Minister of Magadha, Rakshasa, to its side — Chanakya uses bheda masterfully. Mistrust between the constituent kings is created through misinformation, confusion and lies till the confederation breaks up. Again, this play is also an example of bheda used against Rakshasa to manipulate him into joining forces with the Mauryas, and agreeing to become Chandragupta’s Prime Minister. It is a most entertaining example of this upaya playing out in a real-world scenario.

Book Nine: If, as a measure of foreign policy, the vijigishu has decided to employ yana and march on an expedition against an antagonist, there are certain precautions to be taken and thought to be put into it. The king has to consider the relative strengths of power, place and time and various dangers of conspiracy and revolt from all sides, from officers, traitors, enemies, etc. There are dangers which bring advantages or disadvantages or uncertainty with them and the thoroughness with which they have been dealt with is a lesson on comprehensive defensive thinking. This book, on the activities of a king about to march on an expedition, discusses how to overcome these dangers using the four upayas in different combinations, as most appropriate to the given person or situation.

As always, secret agents are a weapon to be deployed to create dissension among conspiring elements, be they internal or external, single or in groups. The skilful use of rumours of poisoning and assassination, false remarks against a conspirator supposedly by a co-conspirator, inducements to betray, gossip, sending of forged letters, honouring one conspirator to inspire jealousy and anger in another; all these are to be cleverly used. There is no end to the deviousness and manipulation. The methods and combination of using upayas mentioned above are explained clearly in this book.

Book 12: This deals with a situation where the vijigishu finds himself attacked by a stronger king; in such a case again, the use of three upayas — saman, dana and bheda is recommended to be used.

Book 11: Sanghas, or oligarchies, were the proto-democratic republics of ancient India. They were forces to be reckoned with not only in the post Vedic Mahajanapada period but also in the Mauryan age. An echo of the prestige and power attached to them lingered till the Gupta period when Chandragupta I issued a special coin on his marriage to a princess of the Licchhavi sangha.

According to Kautilya, the gain of a sangha as a friend is best among the gains of an army and an ally; for they, being closely knit, are unassailable for enemies. He mentions the Kambojas, Surashtras, Ksatriyas, Srenis and others who live by an economic vocation and the Licchhavis, Vrijjis, Mallas, Madrakas, Kukuras and Kurus and Panchalas and others who make use of the title of kings.

He advises the vijigishu that he should win over those of them who are friendly with saman and dana and those hostile through bheda and danda. The stealthy use of force, upamsudanda is also recommended.

These sanghas were characterised by collective leadership and the idea was to sow dissension amongst the chiefs, weaken and divide them. After this, the weaker elements were to be removed and settled away from their territory.

Strife between chiefs was to be fomented by many different methods, for instance, secretly killing one chief and blaming it on another. Murder could be made plausible by provoking lust for the same woman— a secret agent— and exploiting the resulting jealousy. Multiple scenarios and methods for achieving this end are drawn up and explained. Arousing ambition and using it against the sangha members is also described. For instance, the ambitious son of a chief could be told that he was actually the son of a king but kept hidden for fear of enemies; he could be convinced to fight with the sangha members to achieve kingship.

The understanding and exploitation of human nature at its most stark is on display in this section.

After fomenting strife and internal fighting, the vijigishu is advised to assist the weaker party with money and arms, make him fight with the hostile group and urge him to kill his rivals.

Once the sangha becomes weak with infighting, it is easy for the vijigishu to take it over. The Arthashastra is a compendium of political and economic theories; which includes precepts of earlier teachers and gurus who are mentioned through a critique of their pronouncements. The section on oligarchies is a good example of the incorporation of possible pre-existing theories which were based on the extant political formations. During the time of the Buddha, predating the Mauryas and the Kautilya Arthashastra, the most powerful Mahajanapadas were Magadha and Vaishali which were in a constant state of war with each other— a war of attrition neither could win.

In the sixth century BCE, Magadha was a monarchy ruled by Bimbisara and, later, his son, Ajatshatru, while Vaishali was the capital of the Vrijji Confederacy which consisted of a number of sanghas. The Licchhavi sangha was the most important constituent of this confederacy and had to be broken up if Vaishali was to be conquered.

Ajatshatru tried to defeat Vaishali on many occasions but failed. The city was almost invincible. He finally sent his minister Vassakara to ask Gautam Buddha for advice. The Buddha responded by saying that as long as the Vrijjis followed the Seven Conditions of Welfare ( ‘satta aparihaniya dhamma’) no one could defeat them. Most important amongst these were meeting in concord, rising in concord, carrying out all undertakings in concord and acting in accordance with the established institutions of the Vrijjis; in other words, cleaving hard to their unity.

Rightly and shrewdly inferring that the unity of the sangha had to be broken, Vasskara and Ajatshatru made use of the upaya of bheda.

King Chetaka, who Ajatsatru had been unable to defeat, was leading the confederacy defending the impregnable city of Vaishali. Using the services of the ganika Magadhika, the monk Kulvalaka was enticed into betraying Vaishali.

He then entered the city disguised as an astrologer, sowed ferment and dissatisfaction amongst the sangha members, convinced some of the townspeople to uproot the chaitya devoted to the deity Munisuvrata and helped Ajatshatru and his forces to enter the city in the confusion. Vaishali was conquered through the use of bheda and danda.

Another version of this legend has Ajatshatru accomplishing the end of breaking up the Licchhavi chiefs’ unity through his own intrigues with the leading ganika of Vaishali, Amrapali.

It seems clear, therefore, that the importance of confederacies and sanghas predates the Mauryas and some of the political precepts explained in the Arthashastra have roots in earlier political formations. The significance of the sanghas was, of course, to endure for many centuries after Ajatsatru.

The four ‘upayas’ of the Arthashastra had a precise political application and have been explained with examples from politics and history of the first millennium BCE. Further consideration will also yield the fact, however, that these ‘upayas’ are applicable to many modern situations as well. The management of foreign policy and external relations could well take a leaf out of this book and use all the four means to achieve diplomatic objectives.

In multilateral fora such as the World Trade Organisation or the United Nations, where groups of countries with common interests vote together, these means can be used to break up those groups and attract support for India’s policies. In corporate battles, in annual general meetings and boardrooms, too, Chanakya’s four upayas can be at the side of the one who wants to conquer, ready to show the way.

These means are nothing but the way to shape the external environment to be more amenable to one’s own will and desire; be it an individual or a nation, and can be used as such. However, a note of caution: it would be prudent to not take the Arthashastra too literally in this modern age. Assassination and poisoning would definitely not be approved of whether in a corporate boardroom or the United Nations General Assembly.

About the Author:
After two decades in the Indian Revenue Service Sumedha Verma Ojha now follows her passion, Ancient India; writing and speaking across the world on ancient Indian history, society, women, religion and the epics. Her Mauryan series is ‘Urnabhih’; a Valmiki Ramayan in English and a book on the ‘modern’ women of ancient India will be out soon.

Article courtesy:

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/the-ingenious-upayas-in-the-arthashastra-could-still-be-used-in-administration-today

How Kautilya’s Arthashastra Shaped The Telling Of Ancient Indian History by Sumedha Verma Ojha

• The Arthashastra gave in-depth examinations on matters such as history, economics, politics, management, among many other subjects.
  It has often been cited as an important source for understanding Mauryan times.
  Beyond the controversy of the date and time of the Arthashastra, it can be read simply for its sheer brilliance in the area of statecraft and economics.

The Arthashastra is so much a part of modern Indian vocabulary on politics, economics and society that it is hard to imagine that this was a book unknown to the English-speaking world until an old manuscript was discovered in 1904. It was translated and presented to the world by R. Shamasastry of the Mysore Oriental Research Institute in Sanskrit, in 1909, and in English in 1915.


It created a storm for all the wrong orientalist reasons— similar to the upheaval caused by the discovery of remains in Harappa and Mohenjodaro. In that case, history was known to have begun with Alexander’s arrival in India. So what was to be made of the spectacular ruins on the banks of the Indus and lost Saraswati, dating to millennia before 323 BCE? Similarly, to find an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft and economics upset the ideas of the rulers about the uncivilised and unsophisticated nature of the colonised Hindus.


Since then, the Arthashastra has enjoyed a revival of sorts with its precepts being used and quoted in books on history, economics, politics, management, religion, spirituality and any other subject on which books are written in English. A cursory search of the internet will throw up pages of purported quotes from Chanakya, many of them being untrustworthy.


What Exactly Is The Arthashastra?
It is a treatise on artha written about 2,300 years ago and attributed to a person named Kautilya. It consists of 15 adhikaranas or books, mainly in prose, with 380 shlokas occurring at the end of the various chapters. The first sutra contains the statement that the Arthashastra was composed by bringing together all treatises on this subject written by earlier authors. It is, therefore, a compilation.
It can be thought of as an encyclopaedia of information on the ancient Indian world, the subjects ranging from kings to spies and ministers, from cotton to spices and pearls, from inheritance to divorce and municipal law, foreign relations to forts and cities, magic incantations to justice and political administration.


It has most immediately been associated with the Mauryas. Lengend has it that Kautilya or Chanakya, a pundit, was humiliated by the Nandas and took an oath to extirpate them. He sees the qualities of kingship in a young goatherd, adopts and brings him up to be a warrior and a statesman and then, when the young boy reaches adulthood, the two of them together establish Mauryan rule over Jambudwipa. The young boy was, of course, Chandragupta Maurya.

Legend also has it that he explored the science of the Arthashastra to make it a weapon against the Nandas and wrote it during the long years before he finally overthrew the Nandas with Chandragupta, and the nucleus of an army collected from Swat. Interestingly, the Sanskrit play Mudrarakshasa by Vishakhadatta (fourth century CE), which tells the story of Chandragupta’s accession to the throne, describes events which could be straight out of the Arthashastra playbook of defeating enemies— if we indeed accept it as a historical play based on Mauryan times.


Along with the Indika and the inscriptions of Ashoka, the Arthashastra has often been cited as an important source for understanding Mauryan times. As is often the case with ancient Indian history, which is a battleground for different ideologies and persuasions, the date and authorship of the Arthashastra is also the subject of many controversies. Who was it written by and when? Does it describe Mauryan times or not? What kind of society is it set in?


Answers for these questions range across a spectrum with the date of the Arthashastra being posited from as early as 600 BCE to as late as the fourth century CE, and the book being attributed to a person named Kautilya, or someone else, or to multiple others. A useful way to look at this is in the words of the 17th century German Indologist, H. Jacobi:
Without weighty grounds, one must not push aside the unanimous Indian tradition; else one practises scepticism not criticism. 

Notwithstanding this advice about accepting Indian historical tradition, most Indologists have followed it only in the breach, as will be the case when an imported historiography is followed without any criticism. There have been repeated attempts to provide “evidence” to “prove” that the Arthashastra was not written by Kautilya but by many others, that it has nothing to do with the Mauryan period and so on.


R. P. Kangle’s seminal work on translating and studying the Arthashastra, in 1965, remains the gold standard on this issue and has, in Volume III of the series, comprehensively addressed and proved the Indian tradition. Various theories have been floated after that too.


An attempt was made by Thomas Trautmann in 1971 to “prove” that different people had composed the different parts of the Arthashastra by counting the number of times “or” and “and” were used in the different books, on the basis that different writers would throw up different numbers of these frequently occurring words. Trautmann himself admitted that this could be tested but not proved. The efficacy of this method; in general, and specifically for analysing a book written in archaic Vedic Sanskrit with pre-Paninian grammar, is still the subject of controversy and can only be negligible as was effectively demonstrated by S. N. Mittal. It was seen that the number of these words differed, according to context, and often within different chapters of the same book.


There have been new attempts by Patrick Olivelle and Mark McClish to place the book during the Saka Kushan period and understand the Indian tradition as a branding exercise by the Guptas who wished to project themselves in the mould of the Mauryas. A detailed critique of this exercise will have to wait for a future article; suffice to say that much evidence had been misread and leaps of faith have been taken which mar some of the insights provided by this new translation. If the views are framed in binary terms of “exploiter” and “exploited” with the “Brahmanical” order as the villain of the piece, the conclusions are bound to be biased.


An oft-repeated objection is that the only mention of a connection with the Nandas, not even the Mauryas, is in one of the concluding shlokas which says that this treatise was composed by the one who rescued the shastra, the weapons and the land from the Nandas. There is no mention of Chandragupta or the Mauryas or Pataliputra. To expect any such mention is to misapprehend the text, which is a theoretical work, and mentions people and places merely as examples, it does not set out to describe the Mauryas of Pataliputra.


For instance, Madurai is mentioned in connection with cotton, Nala and Udayana as illustrations of kings who recovered a lost kingdom. Udayan, the king of Koshambi was a famous and much-written about king of the sixth century BCE or thereabouts. An example of the ideal romanticised monarch, he is the hero of the famous story cluster of the Brihatkatha of similar antiquity and it seems that the ubiquity of his fame included the Arthashastra.


For the confusion between the names Vishnugupta, Chanakya and Kautilya the explanation is simple; the first was his given name, the second his patronymic and the last was the gotra name.

Let us now move on to a consideration of the book itself. The Arthashastra begins with an invocation to Brihaspati and Shukra and is concerned with the study of artha which is the “sustenance” or “livelihood” (vrittih) of men. It is the science which is the means of the acquisition and protection of the earth.


Artha is one of the goals of individual human existence— dharma, artha, kama and moksha. Understood in the extended sense of the earth where men live and seek well-being, it assumes the goal of the well-being of men, in general. Since it is the state alone which can make such general well-being possible the protection of the earth and its acquisition, which are an essential part of state activity, are declared to be the province of the shastra.


Thus, the Arthashastra has a twofold aim, palana or “administration of the state” and labha or “acquisition of territory” which would include foreign policy considerations. In other words, it is the science of statecraft or of politics and administration. Arthashastra and Dandaniti or Nitishastra have the same scope but the origins of this shastra are obscure.


An account of its supposed origin is found in the Shantiparvan of the Mahabharata. When human society became chaotic and anarchic from its previous idyllic state during Satyuga, the gods approached Brahma and he wrote a treatise on nitishastra to guide humanity— having almost one lakh of chapters. This was reduced to 10,000 chapters by Lord Sankara as the Vaisalaksha Shastra, then to 5000 chapters by Lord Indra as the Bahudantaka Shastra, to 3000 chapters by Brihaspati as the Barhaspatya Shastra and then by Usanas to 1000 chapters as the Ausanas Shastra.

  Shantiparvan recites a theory of governance and duties of a leader, as explained by a dying Bhishma to Yudhishthira. 

 

 

Shorn of the celestial connections, it gives us references to historical persons also referred to in other works of antiquity. Brihaspati and Usanas/Shukra were the prototype purohitas, for the devas and asuras respectively and, therefore, expected sources of niti or arthashastra for kings. There are numerous references to Brihaspati and Shukra in many early sources such as the Rigveda. The Arthashastra frequently mentions Visalaksha and Bahudantiputra so they are likely to be real people and early theorists of arthashastra as well.


Kautilya’s Arthashastra is the oldest work on the subject that has come down to us but it is a culmination of older traditions and schools of thought which are often referred to in the text. Kautilya enumerates the views of the old school and then critiques and offers his own opinion on the subject. Following R.P. Kangle’s translation, the treatise itself can be described.


The Books Of The Arthashastra
It consists of 15 adhikaranas or books, the first five deal with tantra or the “internal administration of the state”, the next eight deal with avapa or its “relations with neighbouring states” and the last two are miscellaneous in character.


The first book deals with the training and equipment of the king as a ruler; and being a “Kautilyan King” is no mean task. He cannot sleep for more than four hours a day and has a full and punishing routine for the rest of the rest of the 20 hours.


Book Two deals with the activities of the state in various fields. 34 departments are described with activities ranging around the fields of agriculture, forestry, cattle, horses, elephants, yarns, liquor, army, issue of passports, trade, customs, shipping, etc.


Book Three sets down a code of law, the fourth deals with the suppression of crime, kantakashodhan, and the next book deals with some miscellaneous matters including an interesting list of the salaries to be paid to royal officials. The high and the mighty like the purohita and the queen were paid 48,000 panas while palace servants received 60 panas and spies received between 500 and 1000 panas depending on their rank. Those aspiring for high or royal positions could read this book and would have received good advice on how exactly to achieve their ambition.


Moving to the section dealing with external relations, Book Six defines the seven necessary constituents of a state— the king, the minister, the country, the fortified city, the treasury, the army and the ally. This book also includes the famous “rajamandala theory.”

The next book discusses the six gunas or measures of foreign policy to be used in different situations. Since the goal of foreign policy for the king, the conqueror or vijigishu, is conquest of the world, there is a description of various ways in which rivals may be outwitted by stratagems or overcome by force.


Book Eight is concerned with vyasanas, that is, calamities which have to be overcome before any aggressive activities can be taken.


Book Nine deals with preparations for war and Book ten with fighting, describing the army, battle arrays and various modes of fighting. The next book explains how to subdue sanghas.


Book 12 tells a weak king the ways in which he can defeat a strong king.


Book 13 is concerned with the conquest of the enemy’s fortified capital and how the conquered territories should be ruled.


Book 14 deals with occult practices and secret remedies and Book 15 defines and illustrates from the text itself the 32 tantra yuktis or “methods of treating a subject.”


Kautilya is, above all, a practitioner of realpolitik and power. He is a close observer of the minutiae of society, polity and economy and its enumerator to an exhaustive degree. Few aspects of life have escaped his eagle eye. Everything is classified, listed and detailed in what are extremely tedious chapters— part of the Indian obsession with classification seen in many archaic and medieval works.
It is not possible to deal with the voluminous material in any detail in an article, the reader is invited to read the Arthashastra for herself; this article will conclude with an interesting description of the role of spies in upholding the Kautilyan state.


Kautilya is often portrayed as unscrupulous and “crooked”, supposedly the root for his name, kutil, from whence is derived Kautilya. Unnecessary and misplaced comparisons with Bismarck and Machiavelli may have contributed to this perception. The treatise is relentlessly focused on power and how to wield it; how to acquire territory, bring economic gains to the state through extension of agriculture, taxation etc.


However, it never loses sight of the fact that artha is rooted in dharma and in the welfare of the subjects lies the welfare of the king. “Praja sukhe sukham rajnah prajanam cha hite hitam” is a famous maxim from the Arthashastra. The approach is ruthless and unsentimental but the goal of dharma is never lost sight of.


The System Of Espionage
It describes a voluminous bureaucracy to control the behemoth state for the good of the praja. An omnipresent, ubiquitous and powerful secret service of spies is the mechanism for controlling this behemoth.


In the first book itself, there is an extensive description of the appointment of different kinds of spies. There were special rules for them and the occupations and an enumeration of the social categories from which they should be drawn, which was pretty much all sections of society; pupils, monks, householders, traders, ascetics, bravos, poison givers, nuns et al. These were stationary or roving spies and kept an eye on everyone.


High officials were set to spy on each other and tested before, after and during their appointment by other roving and stationary spies. Common citizens and householders were also spied upon. Households, bedrooms, kitchens, shops, dancing houses were all to be infiltrated and information collected and analysed. In the enemy’s country, double agents were to be established and used especially before military campaigns.


These spies were to be trained in the special sciences of the interpretation of marks, touch of the body, magic, creation of illusions, omens and the art of association amongst men.The last has an interesting echo of social, even behavioural, psychology. They were to be proficient in the art of disguises and the secret language of the spies. Interestingly, this language consisted of signs, songs, recitations and writings concealed in musical instruments. An example of this will be found in the Mudrarakshasa.


These were days much before the explosion of media and its use for monitoring and manipulating public opinion but this vast network of spies was used in a similar manner; planted amongst the populace to praise the king and forestall any criticism for instance, or to gauge public opinion. This was done not only in Mauryan times but also before in Valmiki’s Ramayan where spies appear at a very important juncture. Recall the meetings of Lord Ram with his spies in the Uttar Kaand of Valmiki’s Ramayana to get an idea of what people in his kingdom thought and felt. It was based on their inputs that he arrived at the infamous decision to exile Sita from Ayodhya.

A final fascinating aspect of this sinister spy system was the role of women in this. Women made the best spies, according to Kautilya, and were fully utilised in the network. Wandering sanysinis, both Hindu and Buddhist, as well as poor and widowed Brahmin women and women skilled in the arts were to be employed. Ganikas, actresses, story-tellers, singers, musicians, daasis, were all to be pressed into the service of the state and be its eyes and ears. They were well-paid and important employees of the state. It was easy for them to infiltrate the houses of the high officials in different roles as servitors, spiritual preceptors or simply friends of the wives of the officials. Ganikas played especially important roles in this area including extension into clandestine interactions with other kingdoms.


The different role of women in the society of the time is worth noting. The closest ring of the king’s security guards was also to consist of specially-trained women soldiers. From the section on salaries, we note that the queen mother and the queen were also two of the highest paid personages in the kingdom, at par with the senapati and the purohita in the receipt of annual salary. Women could own property and pass it on to their heirs, under some circumstances, as per Book three on law, and were also allowed to divorce their husbands under some specific conditions. They also contributed to the state economy by working in the craft guild especially as weavers.


The complex society of the time and the categories of economic activity are extensively described and merit an in-depth examination. Other subjects dealt with in this comprehensive and wide-ranging treatise will be dealt with in further articles. Above and beyond the controversy of the date and time of the Arthashastra, it can be read simply for its sheer brilliance in the area of statecraft and economics— much that is useful even today.

Article Courtesy: https://swarajyamag.com/culture/how-kautilyas-arthashastra-shaped-the-telling-of-ancient-indian-history?fbclid=IwAR0AexUcNnecSF_W4-csZEhFy0sTvvOWTuc4P5Pbm-Mhw18KmFmzKLBaWBM

 

How Chanakya Dealt With Fake Currency And Corruption By Sumedha Verma Ojha

• Chanakya ultimately faced the same problems as the current government is facing in the present with corruption, counterfeiting and tax evasions. Flooding the economy with fake coins would have the same deleterious effect as fake currency has today.
  The state has to work towards nation building with the help, as imperfect as that may be, of its citizens. It can only be what its citizens want it to be and what they contribute with their hard work; today, as it was in the past.
  

The demonetisation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes on the 8th of November has unleashed a furious debate in India on taxation, corruption, the informal cash economy, counterfeiting of notes and so on. There are different theoretical views on the pros and cons of this measure.


In this context it will be interesting to see what the most seminal Indic theoretician of politics and economics, Chanakya, has to say on these issues in his magnum opus, the Arthashastra.
While looking for insights from this ancient theoretical work it behooves us to be cautious in drawing parallels as the structure and organization of the economy today is very different from what it was two and a half millennia ago.


As has been pointed out earlier in this column, ‘artha’ is one of the goals of individual human existence— ‘dharma’, ‘artha’, ‘kama’ and ‘moksha’. Understood in the extended sense of the earth where men live and seek well-being, it assumes the goal of the well-being of men, in general. Since it is the state alone which can make such general well-being possible, the protection of the earth and its acquisition, essential parts of state activity, are declared to be the province of the shastra. So says the Arthashastra.


The state manifestly needs resources to fill its ‘kosh’ or treasury to realise the objectives of palan(administration) and labh (acquisition of territory). These resources come from the economic surplus created by the people within the kingdom.


Chanakya advocated oversight and control of economic activity to safeguard and support sources of income for the state.

Incomes were classified as coming from the city, country, mines, irrigation works, forests, cattle-herds and trade routes. Economic activity was state run as well as in private hands and arrangements were made for both sectors.

The ways in which incomes from these sources were appropriated included ‘mulya’ or price at which state goods were sold, ‘bhaga’ or state share of private goods, ‘vyaji’ or sales tax, ‘parigha’ or protective duty to safeguard state goods, ‘klipta’ or port duty, ‘rupika’ or surcharge on manufacture and ‘atyaya’ or penalty.

This practical classification of sources of income was in use during the Mauryan period but has its roots in practices going back into the past. It may be noted that there were certain exceptions made on different bases for different groups of people so the impact of taxation was not as dire as it may seem, Chanakya was anyway of the view that tax should be extracted unobtrusively as the bee extracts honey from flowers and returned in as spectacular a fashion as the rain falls from the skies.

Taxation was one of the biggest sources of income for the state and there was a complex and widespread bureaucratic machinery in place to keep strict vigil on economic actors and appropriate the share of the state from their produce whether in the cities or the countryside, trade or agriculture.
34 departments with ‘adhyakshas’ or heads, and officials to assist them are described in the Arthashastra. One of the main functions of the heads of departments was to see that incomes and expenditures of their departments were correctly estimated and the correct tax levied; there were penalties for levying both too much and too little tax.

There was a separate accounts system with an ‘akshatpataladhyaksh’ or what we would understand as a Comptroller and Auditor General. There were strict guidelines for preparing the accounts and for auditing them.

Most of the officers worked in the smaller cities and the countryside and were enjoined to keep an eye on those who were too extravagant or too miserly as also those setthis ( rich merchants or guild masters) who buried their wealth or hid it in hollow pillars. Those city rich who passed on their money to be stored with villagers as also those who sent their riches to be hoarded in foreign lands were also to be guarded against as they were antithetical to the prosperity of the kingdom.

Corruption amongst officials was a persistent worry; Chanakya trusted no one and had an elaborate system of spies in place to keep an eye on the entire official machinery and spies to keep an eye on the spies themselves! As he said, it was as difficult to check how much money royal officials were misappropriating as it was to find out how much water a fish drank as it swam around in the river. There are elaborate shlokas on ways of corruption in the bureaucracy, how to recognise them and deal with them.

Let us now take a look at coinage. During Mauryan times the move from exchange in kind to exchange via coins was not complete and many transactions were still in kind. Coins have been mentioned in the Rig Veda and punch marked coins had already been introduced centuries earlier in the age of the sixteen great Mahajanpadas. It was the Nandas, the predecessors of the Mauryas, however, who had first tried to systematise and centralise the minting of coins as a state monopoly as opposed to guild issued punch marked coins.

The Mauryans took it further and the Arthashastra has guidelines on the exact composition of silver and copper coins (no gold coins are mentioned or found in any of the coin hoards dating from Mauryan times), mints are run only by the state and there are fines and punishments for anyone else attempting to mint and issue coins, similar to modern centralisation of currency issue although not as perfect, obviously. There was a rupadarsaka or mint master in charge of circulation of coins and he was liable to punishment if irregular coins were found in circulation.

The move to trade and exchange with coins led to a quantum jump in the monetization of the surplus in the economy and was the basis for the famous prosperity of the Mauryans, the basis of their fearsome army and far reaching influence.

What parallels or insights can we draw from this relevant to the situation today?

As far as taxation and the economy outside of it are concerned the issue remains the same; How to achieve maximum coverage and catch revenue from all economic activity in the tax net. Filling the treasury was and remains, even today, an essential part of nation building and the welfare of the people.

Penalties and fines were then, as now, levied for tax evasion.

Corruption and hoarding of wealth were issues too. People who buried wealth in the ground and those who stored it outside the country are exhorted to be guarded against. Some things do not change over the centuries!

Counterfeiting was equally a problem. Debased coins of the Mauryan era have been found with a smaller component of metal in the coins. It may point to the royal mints themselves debasing the coins in order to be able to make more of them or to counterfeiting by others. A coin of copper with an overlay of silver dating to the reign of Ashoka has also been found, a technological marvel of that age in the matter of counterfeiting.

Flooding the economy with fake coins would have the same deleterious effect as fake currency has today.

There were fines for dealing in counterfeit currency and it may be noted that the punishment for the introduction of a counterfeit coin into the royal treasury was death.

Problems of economic and social behaviour remain broadly identifiable across the centuries, theoretical formulations have tried to address these issues but there is no final solution to the problems that arise from human behaviour.

The state has to work towards nation building with the help, as imperfect as that may be, of its citizens. It can only be what its citizens want it to be and what they contribute with their hard work; today, as it was in the past.

About the Author- After two decades in the Indian Revenue Service Sumedha Verma Ojha now follows her passion, Ancient India; writing and speaking across the world on ancient Indian history, society, women, religion and the epics. Her Mauryan series is ‘Urnabhih’; a Valmiki Ramayan in English and a book on the ‘modern’ women of ancient India will be out soon.

Article courtesy: https://swarajyamag.com/culture/taxation-corruption-counterfeiting-and-chanakya