In this book S.N. Mital examines in detail and refutes the views held by many scholars that the text of Kautiliya Arthasastra was not written by a single author and that the date of its composition cannot be attributed to a single century.
The book has been primarily written as a reply to T.R. Trautmann's Kautilya and the Arthasastra, in which he tried to prove, with the help of statistics, that the Arthasastra was a compilation of writings by three or four authors, edited by Kautilya. This view was based on an analysis of the frequency of the use of ca (and) and va (or) in different portions of the Arthasastra. Trautmann also seems to have used this argument to maintain that the Arthasastra was composed sometime after the second century.
Mital tries to show, through his own collection of statistics, that Trautmann's thesis is misconceived and that va was more frequently used in those portions of the text where the subject treated is primarily political, and ca was more frequently used where the discussion is primarily theoretical, and so this difference in the frequency of use of va and ca does not indicate different authors. Mital asserts that the Arthasastra was written by Kautilya in the fourth century BC, as is generally supposed, and not in the third century AD, a view propounded by some Western as also some Indian scholars who wrote in the 1920s and 1930s.
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Part I : DATE OF ARTHASASTRA :
1. Traditional Opinion :
i. Association of Canakya and Candragupta
ii. Canakya, Visnugupta and Kautilya - Synonymity of Names
iii. Kautilya: Writer of the Arthasastra
iv. Evidence of the Kautiliya Arthasastra
2. Views of Jolly, Keith and Winternitz :
i. Existence of Kautilya Denied
ii. Arthasastra : Not written by Kautilya
iii. Arthasastra : Not a work of Fourth Century BC
iv. Arthasastra : A Composition of Third Century AD
Part II : A STUDY OF TRAUTMANN'S STATISTICAL ANALYSIS :
1. Preliminary Objections :
i. Study Based only on the Use of va (or) and ca (and)
ii. Counting of Occurrences of va Arid ca not Necessary
iii. 20-Word block Calculations Falsifies the Results
2. Examination of Statistical Conclusions of Trautmann :
i. Different Chapters of Various Books not Coming from the Same Population
ii. Different Portions of Some Chapters Also do not Come from the Same Population
iii. The Crucial Question of Context
3. Other Deficiencies of the Theory :
i. Deviation of Trautmann from his Own Statistics
ii. Sentence-Length And Compound-Length Study
iii. Control Material
iv. Cross-References
v. Lacunae of the Statistical Method Exemplified
4. Trautmann's Arguments Against Kautilya's Authorship of Arthasastra :
i. Divisions into Chapters
ii. Chapter 1
iii. Book 15
iv. Terminal Verses