Arthasastra was originally written in Sanskrit by Kautilya
popularly known as Chanakya, before two thousand years
about the political
administration. This book is well
within the tradition of vedic scholorship. This book
not only transmits the views of previous authors but also
transmits gives the critic about his views and his own
views about the legal matters.
Chanakya was Chief Minister of famous Indian Ruler
Chandraguptha Maurya. He was the cause for the decline
of Nanada dynasyty and for the origin of Gupta
dynasyty.This tells about the scholorship of the author.
He ordered his book in this manner Statecraft,
Management, Law, Criminals,Secret procedure, Mandala
theory, Foreign Policies, Disaters, War preparations, War
rules,Oligarchies,The weaker King, Seige warfare,
Episionage and the final summary of the book.
Each and every part of administration was described in
Arthasastra such as civilorder,the heir apparent,Succession
and usurpation,choosing
ministers, consulting
ministers, dishonesty of ministers,house tax, service
tax,etc. It also deals with the judiciary of the
nation.Family laws are classified under the topics Marraige
law, divorce through abandonment law and inheritance law.
He classifies civil law as witnesses, contract for labour,
robbery, assault and gambling. He says witnesses have their
duty to keep up the truth if they fail they will be
punished.He is empirically minded, and constantly rejects
rules of thumb, advocating instead a judgement based on the
specifics of a particular situation. He does not let his
indignation run away with him, but instead wants to keep
penalties to an appropriate scale, so they will not
become an impediment to the justice process itself. In law
as in statecraft, he knows that it matters what the
relevant public (the palace circle, the community of which
a miscreant remains a member) will accept. He understands
that decrees mean nothing without acceptance. This
sense would have been extremely helpful in guiding the
establishment of the Maurya empire, which rested not
wholly on conquest, but partly on a system of satellite
states, in negotiating with which tact would have been
important, and on the compliance of its own population,
which required some consideration to establish. He explains
about the town planning, irrigation facilities, life of the
people, their economic status,agriculture, business
dealings inside and out side the country,sea journey, duty
of the king during the natural calamities etc.Interstingly
we find his saying about the secret police and the spy
system.He explains their type of work and its importance.
This is similar to the present intelligence department we
are having.It is interesting to know that this first book
on political administration in the world was written two
thousand years back in India. This tells that Indians are
vast and controlling knowledge in public administration.