Thread by @Prajapati808

Lets see historicity of the Chankya and his Arthshastra

R. Shamashastry is the scholar who first discovered Arthashastra manuscript at the time of 1905.

Later he published this manuscript in a book form.

Thread📜

Evidence from the Hindu scripture and literature

1. Vishnu purana (composition range from 700 BC to 900 AD)

2. The Kamandaka Nitisara was written in the time of Chandragupta II by Prime Minister Sikhara.

It was based on Kautilya's Arthashtra.

3. Kadambari of Shri Bana bhatt (the first half of the 7th century)

4. Kalidasa (380 CE – 415 CE)

5. Varāhamihira (505-587AD)

6. Terms of coin type and weight

7. Mudrarakshasa (4th century)

8. Alur inscription of The Vikramaditya V
Inscription dated to earliest 11th century.

Jain and Arabic evidence

1. Parishishtaparvan by Hemchandra Suri (12th century)

2. Nandi sutra

Where are they calls veda, upnishad, ramayan, mahabharat and even Arthshastra a fake grant.

Buddhist evidence

1. The Pali text Mahāvaṃsa

2. Parishishtaparvan (6th century CE)

3. The 16th-century Tibetan Buddhist author Taranatha mentions Chanakya as one of Bindusara’s “great lords”. According to him, Chanakya destroyed the nobles and kings of 16 towns and made Bindusara the master of all the territory between the eastern and the western seas.

4. Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa

Another clinching argument about the reality of Chanakya and his achievements is supplied by the Arya Manjusri Mulakalpa, or the Buddhist Imperial History of India. The monkish author of this book had no love for Chanakya.

Odium theologicum, the worst of all prejudices made him consign Chanakya to Hell for untold thousands of years to suffer all kinds of tortures as a punishment
for his political murders and other crimes. But even he never dreamt of denying Chanakya's existence or
achievements.

He says, " Then we come to Vishnugupta (Chankya), the Brahmin at Pataliputra. He will be the soul of anger, and a miracle-worker, and will destroy kings for an insult suffered by him owing to his poverty. He is called the ' King of Anger ' and the ' Incarnation of Death.'

He subdued the wicked and removed much evil, and augmented what was good. But, all said and done, that fool of a poverty-stricken Brahmin, carried away by his anger, took the king's life in revenge."

9. The Dashakumaracharita (7th century)

CC.

Summary : That Chanakya is a real historical person is clear from his mentioning Kusadhvaja and the Ambhiya (named after Ambhi or Omphis) school of Politics in his Arthasastra.

Kusadhvaja was razed to the ground by Alexander, and Ambhi disappears .from history after 321 B.C. So, Chanakya must have lived and written the Arthshastra before 300 B.C.

Again above there are the unanimous testimony of Hindus, Buddhists and Jains.

These three rival groups had no motive to agree about such a person, if he did not exist.

Even the Hindus had no special reason to take away the credit of Chandragupta's achievement by inventing a Brahmin, Chanakya, who exterminated the Nandas and had him crowned.

The B and Jains, who did not love Brahmins over-much,
had still less reason to do so. To add to this unanimous testimony, there is the express claim by Kautalya in his Arthasastra that he uprooted the Nandas, and wrote a
certain chapter of the book for the sake of " Narendra,"

who is found to be no other than Chandragupta Maurya from the Brahmanda Purana. Nobody in India dared to dispute this proud claim.

All accepted it as true.

So tell me why were everyone ranting and praising someone name who was not there at that time?

Controversy and argument

In 1923, Julius Jolly wrote a book in which he questioned the existence of Arthashastra and Chankya for the first time. He pointed out that Chankya and his shastra are fictional. He gave many arguments that Arthshastra was written in 3-4 century A.D.

jolly said that Chankya was not mentioned in the Indica by Megasthanes and Patanjali Mahasutra.

My question is that why would someone write such a well-developed and cultured law for the king who was born 300-400 years ago? And even if someone writes it down, how would he know what the governance system and India geography was like at that time?

Chanakya described the regions and Janapadas which had already ended before the Sunga dynasty.

It is also written in indica that Megasthanes had seen fox-sized ants which used to dig gold.

Now someone tell me that have you ever seen such ants?

If Chankya is not mentioned then which ministers and army leaders has he mentioned? The answer would be none. Now it is not true that Chandragupta used to fight wars without army leaders and ministers.

Opinions of Scholars like Vincent Smith, Barnett and M.H. Krishna of the importance of the Kotilya Arthshastra.

Even denier Julius Jolly agree that how magnificent Arthashastra was.

In 1924, historian Kashiprashad jayashwaal wrote a book "Hindu Rajtantra " to debunk all fasle claims that propagate by Julius Jolly in his book.

He dedicated 41 pages in his book to answer all of jolly's nonsense questions.

Here's link archive.org/details/in.ern…

Megasthanes "Indica" lovers must read this book. I am not going to explain all 40 pages. If I do it would be become a long thread. If you are lazy then I can only give ss.

Every page is important so read yourself.

In the end, I would say that the Arthashastra manuscript discovered by R. Shamashastry at the time of 1905 was dated yet?

But we get another manuscript that was found in Afghanistan (gandhar). This script is said to belong to the 1st millennium A.D, which we find Buddhist site.

The Bajaur collection of manuscripts published this pure sanskrit Kharoṣṭhī manuscript of Arthashastra.

At that time those Buddhist created a new genre of the Arthashastra in a format of Pali literature.

Historians who discovered say that Buddhists were learning monarchy and politics from the Arthshastra in their time. So someone tell me that if Chankya was fictional character then why was the Arthashastra written by him so popular at that time, which even Buddhists read?

[End]

Try to read this long thread😂

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Correction : it is said manuscript belongs 3rd century A.D

@Vyasonmukh