Introduction

The Arthashastra is the most important work of political science from ancient India. Its fifteen books cover almost every aspect of governing a state: the education and daily routine of the king; the selection and testing of ministers; the management of the treasury, taxes, mines, agriculture, trade and weights and measures; law and punishment; the organisation of a network of spies; the 'six measures' of foreign policy and the theory of the mandala, by which a neighbouring state is a natural enemy and the enemy's neighbour a natural ally; and war, siege and conquest. Measuring everything by the interest of the state, cool, practical and quite unembarrassed by intrigue, it astonished scholars when it was rediscovered in the early twentieth century; Max Weber remarked that beside it Machiavelli's Prince is harmless. This volume translates its most important parts.