The empire contained many types of people with different social customs and usages. The earlier kings before the Maurya era ruled over small kingdoms. Of these, each later item is of superior validity to its predecessor.” This means that the King’s order or decree was above all other forms of Law. According to Kautilya: “Dharma, contract, custom and royal decree are the four legs of law. But in Chandragupta’s time monarchy assumed a new character. They worked as the guardians of the Law, but were not the law-givers themselves.
They ruled in accordance with the principles of Dharma, social customs and usages. The kings of ancient India under Hindu polity enjoyed limited power. But, under new conditions, Chandragupta’s kingship had to rest on greater powers. The Nanda kings before Chandragupta were powerful monarchs. The Maurya king was the head of the State and of the administration as in most ancient monarchies. The following were the important features of the Maurya administration. Similarly, Kautilya’s omission of some essential names of the time might have been for the fact that he was writing the Arthasastra not to describe the Mauryan polity, but as a standard guideline for all rulers and states of all times.įrom the Arthasastra, and the accounts of the Greek writers, and from other historical sources, the system of the Maurya administration, as under Chandragupta, had been more or less ascertained. In ages to follow, other writers might have added something more on the body of the original Arthasastra to create doubt about its actual time.
There are reasonable evidences to show that Chanakya lived in the time of Chandragupta, and in his other name of Kautilya, was the author of Arthasastra.Ī great work such as Arthasastra could have been only the work of a vastly wise and practically experienced man like Kautilya. The deep-rooted tradition, resting on several literary sources, has also shown Chanakya as the Prime Minister of the Maurya Empire.
But, traditions associate the name of Chanakya or Kautilya with the name of Chandragupta so closely, that their names are almost inseparable in that great enterprise of empire making. Some even doubt if Kautilya was the real author of that work.
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