![]() ![]() The king’s minister shall direct his affairs in conformity to the forecast made by the ascetic. ![]() He shall also foretell not only the rewards which persons possessed of foresight, eloquence, and bravery are likely to receive at the hands of the king, but also probable changes in the appointments of ministers. small profits, destruction by fire, fear from robbers, the execution of the seditious, rewards for the good, forecast of foreign affairs, saying, “This will happen to-day, that to-morrow, and that this king will do.” Such assertions of the ascetic his disciples shall corroborate (by adducing facts and figures). ![]() Regarding those persons who, desirous of knowing their future, throng to him, he may, through palmistry, foretell such future events as he can ascertain by the nods and signs of his disciples concerning the works of high-born people of the country–viz. His other disciples may widely proclaim that “This ascetic is an accomplished expert of preternatural powers.” ![]() Merchant spies pretending to be his disciples may worship him as one possessed of preternatural powers. Such a spy surrounded by a host of disciples with shaved head or braided hair may take his abode in the suburbs of a city, and pretend as a person barely living on a handful of vegetables or meadow grass taken once in the interval of a month or two, but he may take in secret his favorite foodstuffs. He even cynically proposes using fake holy men for this purpose.Ī man with shaved head or braided hair and desirous to earn livelihood is a spy under the guise of an ascetic practicing austerities. Kautilya sometimes goes to amusingly absurd lengths to imagine various sorts of spies. One of the most notorious features of the Arthashastra is its obsession with spying on the king’s subjects. He reveals the imagination of a romancer in imagining all manner of scenarios which can hardly have been commonplace in real life. He mixes the harsh pragmatism for which he is famed with compassion for the poor, for slaves, and for women. Although often compared to Machiavelli’s Prince because of its sometimes ruthless approach to practical politics, Kautilya’s work is far more varied–and entertaining–than usual accounts of it indicate. This treatise on government is said to have been written by the prime minister of India’s first great emperor, Chandragupta Maurya. ![]()
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