[Y-Indology] Fwd: are canakya and kautilya are one?

[Guest guest]

Many thanks for your time, DL. But, I can see that you are not open.

Nor you are well versed with Indian traditional texts either.

 

The date of 3138 bce is assigned to Mbh war by the great astrologers

of yesteryears, Mihira and Aryabhat. Mihira was conversant with no

less than five systems of astronomy, two of them being foreign- Roman

and Paulish. (St. Paul?) {ref. Wonder that was India, AL Basham}

(the date of 3102 bce was assigned to the death of Sri Krishna)

 

All the puranas as well as Kaliyuga rajya vrittanta (KRV) were

unanimous in the 1500 years period between MBh war and coronation of

Nanda. (re: Matsya, Vsnu). The ten Nandas have ruled Magadha for 100

years. These are all accepted Puranic chronology.

 

Since you seem to be unaware of these arguements, you are asking for

substantiation. You are holding onto the standard chronology, which

has been perpetuated by imperialists and later, their followers.

 

The britishers have obvious vested interests in fixing an abridged

chronology of India. They have rejected anything that has not fallen

into their line of thought, as simply bogus. For eg., KRV mentioned

above was rejected as a bogus work. Reason given? the manuscript is

dilapidated! You mean, an ancient work should be found cutely bound

and neatly printed???

 

The racist- esp the feelings of mythical aryan superiority-

considerations and religious dogma , the biblical genesis in

particular, have prompted these people to perpetuate falsehoods about

Indian history and unfortunately, today even the unbiased are hanging

onto this.

 

I reject this chronology, which you find in any of the sixth class

text books. For eg., can you show me one valid reason how Sandro

cottus can be identified with CGM and not with DL or Kishore mohan???

(For the contrary, you can refer ' who is sandro cottus?' by sri ram

saathee) Dont ask me to go and refer romila thapar, I did! Right from

Max Mueller to Satish chandra, noone has ever bothered to reply even

Taylor, leave alone modern nationalist historians, so far as

Sandrocottus is concerned. And sandrocottus is the anchorsheet of

Indian history!! some anchor in troubled seas!!!

 

On the other hand, I reject the continous egalitarian society theory

of the nationalists. I strongly believe that the nationalists lack a

sense of social consciousness that is so very necessary when you

observe Indian history.

 

In the absence of detailed archaeological studies, we can only rely

on the literary sources. However, the good news is that you will find

that the archaeologics are slowly moving towards what has been said

in literature. (Beginning of Iron age could be one point in example)

 

You are talking of newspaper publications. History cannot be studied

from newspaper publications and newsgroup discussions.( i suggest you

study puranas and rg veda before coming to conclusions regarding the

chronology , or atleast, please read venkatachalam or SD Kulkarni.)

 

Now, coming to KA, Arthashastra is also known as

Rajnitishastra, Nitishastra and Dandashastra. Brihaspati is said to be

the original proponent of Arthashastra.(ref Sid Harth or ask Y

Malaiya)

 

it is astonishing that you are not aware of the other work by

canakya. Dowson has referred to the Canakya sutra. You can refer to

chanakya sastra, {Sri K. Raghunathaji's version of "Vriddha-Chanakya -

The Maxims of Chanakya" (Family Printing Press, Bombay, 1890)} There

is also 'caa.nakyaniiti`saastra and Caa.nakyaraajaniiti`saastra'

(Calcutta Oriental Series, No. 2. 1926).

 

Now, in this regard, my logic is very simple.

 

1. A 1929 paper by Johnston ( can be found online) as well as a 1985

seminar headed by RT (as referred to by Rangarajan in his text book)

have concluded that the present work known to us has been written in

the early centuries of common era. I quote from a post by Y Malaiya

which substantiates this view:

 

"http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0001&L=indology&P=R9139

 

I will have to dig out the shloka by Hemachandracharya.

 

The Arthashastra available today is likely not the one composed by

Kautalya,

but another text composed later based on Kautalya's.

It is speculated that the author of available Arthashastra and

Kamasura might be the same person.

 

The Jain tradition about Kautalya is given in Hemchandracharya's

Parishistaparvan, which has recently been published as The Lives of

the Jain

Elders (Oxford World's Classics) by R. C. C. Fynes,

Trans.

 

In Avashyakachurni, Chanakya is said to have been born in the Golla

country,

which some scholars have placed in somewhere

in South, perhaps in Godavari region. About his final days we are

sure that spent in Magadh. If he did study at Takshshila as some

sources suggest, then he had covered the three corners of India,

which is interesting to note.

 

In Jain tradition, both Chandragupta Maurya and Chanakya are

said to have become monks in the later part of their lives.

 

Yashwant"

 

I have given a pvt. mail to mr Yashwant and his reply is awaited.

 

Based on their conclusions , we can conclude that the present book we

are reading as KA has been rewritten in 150 AD.

 

2. It is not very coincidental that several other nitisastras have

been written during the same time- for eg., such as Yajna valkya

(refer sureshwar jha, sahitya akademi, who has concluded that YV

smriti has been written in the magical year 150 AD) or Manu smriti. (

i have posted a paper by PATRICK OLIVELLE

(ref ///message/49)

 

 

It is possible that Musaraksa has rewritten all these smritis. For

this simple reason alone, YV (who traditionally belonged to Mithila

court which has not existed after Buddha's time; so how could he

write in 150 ACe?)was in agreement with canakya yet, no reference was

made to canakya (or vice versa). ( i.e . since both the books have

been reconstruced by the same person)

 

On the other hand, there is evidence in Puranas and other sources to

this fact. Masuraksa has hardly any independent slokas to his credit.

Yet, he has been eulogised along with canakya, asvalayana, and other

great smriti writers in Lankavatarasutra (outer limit 443 Ace)

 

The puranas have designated Masuraksa as the reincarnation of Vyasa.

This is done inspite of little known work(niti sastra, comprising of

some gnomic verses, ref Hugh flick,which I have not read). This is

because, Masuraksa has done to smritis , what VedaVyasa has done to

Vedas.

 

In other words, KA was written by Masuraksa in 150 ACE. From the

above discussion, we can safely conclude it has been rewritten from

what is the work of Canakya (Hence, the repeated saying in KA- "iti

canakya', thus said canakya, though this has been discounted on the

pretext of this being a usual practice)

 

3. Then, when did canakya write the KA?

 

The majority have concluded that KA in its original form was written

during the Mauryan times. I am not going into a detailed discussion

of this, since there is a majority opinion on this anyway.

 

I conclude that KA in its original form was written during Mauryan

times.

 

4. Now, the pertinent questions come: if KA was originally written

during the greek invasion, how is that it got so dilapidated in a

mere 500 years (which generally does not happen to a sanskrit text)

that it had to be rewritten? It only means it must have been written

much before that.

 

In other words, the mauryan times must have been much earlier than

the accepted 327 bce period.

 

Second question is that the kingdom canakya discussed does not go

with what has been described by Greeks. Thus, R C Majumdar comments

that the Mauryan kingdom may not be an empire but a small kingdom

which has survived on the tactics of canakya (and later, that of

Raksaka)and the love hate relationship with neighboring fiefdoms.

 

Ie if we accept that Canakya has indeed written about Mauryan kingdom

and it does not go with the accounts of the kingdom of sandrocottus,

that means it is not mauryas who were ruling at the time of greek

invasion.

 

{More over, the miserly nature of Nandas seem to be more that of

plunderers than of Kings who would like to maintain great empires.

This tallies with what R C Majumdar has commented)

 

In short, CGM has lived much before the greek invasion, he had a

small kingdom , established and sustained thanks to canakya. canakya

has written KA during this period, which , along with other works,

has been reconstruced by Masuraksa during 150

Ace.

 

Hope I am clear and substantiated my facts.

 

kishore