Kautilya (Chanakya)

Kautilya was the brain and architect for the founding and establishment of the mighty, unparalleled and unrivaled empire of Magadha.

Even before Kautilya, the Nanda kingdom in Magadha was also mighty and even defeated and conquered the mighty Greek invader Alexander and chased him out of Bharat.

Magadha never even fought the Greeks, their reputation and might was so formidable that in fact Alexander’s soldiers actually refused to fight Magadha, mutinied, rebelled and forced Alexander to terminate his campaign in Bharat and return to Greece.

Alexander had conquered the mightiest of empires including the Persian empire, but could not conquer Magadha.

During the time of Kautilya, Magadha was the greatest empire in the whole world.

Today’s so called FUKUS “superpowers” would no hope of even reaching even one tenth what Magadha had reached for its times with regards to the peace, prosperity, security and wellbeing of its citizens.

Kautilya as a person must have been ruthless, dispassionate and very shrewd but at heart he was a good person.

Only such a person could have written the texts like the Arthashastra and Neetishastra.

But there is one flaw with Kautilya, he puts the law of the King above the law of Dharma.

That is why the kingdom of Magadha ultimately failed.

There is no law above Dharma.

Even the mightiest of Gods, leave alone Kings have to submit to the law of Dharma.

Kautilya is most famous for two works:

Arthashastra and Neetishastra

The entire Arthashastra in English can be read and is hostedat the Columbia University website.(https://bit.ly/2NhGeP5)

It is really ironic, the best sources of ancient Bharat in English are not in Bharat but in the good universities and libraries in USA, UK, Russia and Germany.

But the main treasure trove of Bharat still exists in Bharat only and remains hidden in its native language.

It is time to translate this to a globally accepted language like English so that the world benefits and appreciates our heritage.