Mauryan Administration and Arthashastra

Lesson 11 of 12 • 10 upvotes • 14:53mins

Abhyudaya Kelkar

So much is talked about Chankya and Chanakyaneeti but both of them are irrelevant as far as Mauryan politics and administration are concerned. These are systematically emphasized and elaborated through another lesser popular but immensely useful treatise – Arthashastra. It was authored by Kautilya, probably the other name of Chanakya or Vishnugupta. Kautilya Arthashastra throws light upon the administration, statecraft and organization of the state because it deals in detail about these aspects. So if we study Arthashastra, we can assume that we have also studied about the Mauryan state and polity and basics of economy and society of that period. Students are advised to pause the slide in which officers and their names are mentioned. Similarly as Arthashastra is helpful in reconstructing the Mauryan Polity, Megasthenes’ ‘Indica’ is helpful in reconstructing the social structure of India during the Mauryan period. Megasthenes was the ambassador of Seleucus Nicator, a Hellenistic emperor, appointed to the court of Chandragupta Maurya after Seleucus’ defeat at the hands of Chandragupta c.305 BC.