Discuss on the approach and method of Kautilya’s famous political text

Arthashastra.

Approach and method of Kautilya’sasserted the primacy of the political over all the other
modes of knowledge or approaches to life. Philosophy, religion, and economics are all rooted in
political science (arthashastra) (KA 1.2.1; 1.5.1); for they all depend for their functioning on the
use of coercive power. ‘The means of ensuring the pursuit of philosophy, the three Vedas and
economics is the Rod (wielded by the king)’ (KA 1.4.3). It is coercive government which enables
subjects to attain the three goals of life: spiritual good, material well-being, sensual pleasure
(KA 1.4.11). The Rod underpins the social order, the caste system, and morality: ‘the people of
the four varnas and in the four stages of life, protected by the king with the Rod [and] deeply
attached to occupationsprescribed by their special duties, keep to their respective paths’ (KA
1.4.16).

Finally, ‘it is punishment alone that guards this world and the other’ (KA3.1.42). So far, so
Hobbesian. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 25/8/2016, SPi 76 A World History of Ancient
Political Thought Kautilya insisted that material well-being is more important than spiritual well-
being or sensual pleasure, since both of these depend on material well- being (KA 1.7.6–7). His
arthashastra is thus the polar opposite of the Bhaga- vad Gita in its estimation of spiritual
values in action. This may have had something to do with why it was forgotten. His view of
society is, one might say, materialist, but in an Aristotelian (or Marxist) sense: although the
spirit- ual depends upon the material, it can also function independently.