Kautilya’s Arthasastra on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India
Abstract
Kautilya was the key adviser to the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya (c.
317-293 B.C.E.), who first united the Indian subcontinent in empire.
Written about 300 B.C.E., Kautilya’s Arthasastra was a science
of politics intended to teach a wise king how to govern. In this work,
Kautilya offers wide-ranging and truly fascinating discussions on war
and diplomacy, including his wish to have his king become a world conqueror,
his analysis of which kingdoms are natural allies and which are inevitable
enemies, his willingness to make treaties he knew he would break, his
doctrine of silent war or a war of assassination against an unsuspecting
king, his approval of secret agents who killed enemy leaders and sowed
discord among them, his view of women as weapons of war, his use of
religion and superstition to bolster his troops and demoralize enemy
soldiers, the spread of disinformation, and his humane treatment of
conquered soldiers and subjects.
Professor Roger Boesche analyses this 2000 years standard operating procedure (SOP) for Hindu statecraft.
KAUTILYA’s Arthasastra was one of the greatest political books
of the ancient world. Max Weber recognized this. “Truly radical ‘Machiavellianism,’ in
the popular sense of that word,” Weber said in his famous lecture “Politics
as a Vocation,” “is classically expressed in Indian literature
in the Arthasastra of Kautilya (written long before the birth of Christ,
ostensibly in the time of Chandragupta [Maurya]): compared to it, Machiavelli’s
The Prince is harmless.”1
Although Kautilya proposed an elaborate welfare state in domestic politics,
something that has been called a socialized monarchy,2 he proved willing
to defend the general good of this monarchy with harsh measures. A number
of authors have explored these domestic policies, but very few scholars
have focused on Kautilya’s discussions of war and diplomacy. And
yet, his analyses are fascinating and far-reaching, such as his wish
to have his king become a world conqueror, his evaluation of which kingdoms
are natural allies and which are inevitable enemies, his willingness
to make treaties that he knew he would break, his doctrine of silent
war or a war of assassination and contrived revolt against an unsuspecting
king, his approval of secret agents who killed enemy leaders and sowed
discord among them, his view of women as weapons of war, his use of religion
and superstition to bolster his troops and demoralize enemy soldiers,
his employment of the spread of disinformation, and his humane treatment
of conquered soldiers and subjects.
Historical Background
Kautilya was the key adviser to — and the genius of the strategy
undertaken by — the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya (c. 317-293
B.C.E.), who defeated the Nanda kings (several related kings trying unsuccessfully
to rule India together), stopped the advance of Alexander the Great’s
successors, and first united most of the Indian subcontinent in empire.
Kautilya —sometimes called chancellor or prime minister to Chandragupta,
something like a Bismarck3 — composed his Arthasastra, or “science
of politics,” to show a wise king how to defeat his enemies and
rule on behalf of the general good. He was not modest in his claims as
to how much he helped Chandragupta, noting “This science has been
composed by him [Kautilya], who ... quickly regenerated the science and
the weapon and [conquered] the earth that was under control of the Nanda
kings.”4
Just after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C.E., Chandragupta and Kautilya
began their conquest of India by stopping the Greek invaders. In this
effort they assassinated two Greek governors, Nicanor and Philip, a strategy
to keep in mind when I later examine Kautilya’s approval of assassination. “The
assassinations of the Greek governors,” wrote Radha Kumud Mookerji, “are
not to be looked upon as mere accidents.”5 By taking much of western
India (the Punjab and the Sindh) from the Greeks and concluding a treaty
with Seleucus (Alexander the Great’s Greek heir to western India),
Chandragupta and Kautilya succeeded in bringing together almost all of
the Indian subcontinent. As a result, Chandragupta was, and is now, considered
the first unifier of India and the first genuine emperor or king of India.6
The Mauryan Empire established by Chandragupta and continued by his son
Bindusara (c. 293-268 B.C.E.) — whom Kautilya also advised — and
by his grandson Ashoka (c. 268-232 B.C.E.) was, and still is, astonishing.
With a population of about fifty million people, the Mauryan Empire was
larger than the Mughal Empire two thousand years later and even larger
than the British Empire in India, extending in fact all the way to the
border of Persia and from Afghanistan to Bengal.7 (The map shows the
extent of the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka.) Pliny — borrowing from
Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucus to Chandragupta — wrote
that Chandragupta’s army totalled about six hundred thousand infantry,
thirty thousand calvary, eight thousand chariots, and nine thousand elephants.8
Chandragupta’s capital was Pataliputra (near modern Patna in northeast
India, just below Nepal), which he apparently seized from the Nandas
sometime between 324 and 322 B.C.E. Pataliputra was probably the largest
city in the world at that time, a city eight miles long and a mile and
one-half wide, with 570 towers and sixty-four gates, all surrounded by
a moat six hundred feet wide and forty-five feet deep. Also protecting
the city were wooden walls — stone was very scarce —with
slits to be used by archers.9 Pataliputra “was about twice as large
as Rome under Emperor Marcus Aurelius.”10
Chandragupta Maurya consolidated an empire and passed it down intact
to his son Bindusara, about whom we know little, and to his grandson
Ashoka. Some argue that the extreme measures that we will see Kautilya
advocate, and some of which Chandragupta surely must have employed, were
necessary to bring order and the rule of law out of chaos,11 making possible
the emergence of Ashoka, who was widely regarded as one of the finest
kings in world history. M.V. Krishna Rao contends, “As a result
of the progressive secularization of society due to the innovations contemplated
by [the Arthasastra] and the administration of Chandragupta, the country
was prepared for the reception of the great moral transformation ushered
in by Asoka and his administration.”12 K.A. Nilakanta Sastri has
written, in a fairly typical statement, “The reign of Asoka forms
the brightest page in the history of India.”13
After witnessing the suffering that occurred during his invasion of the
kingdom of Kalinga, Ashoka turned toward Buddhism and non-violence. He
declared that in the future he would conquer only by morality or by dhamma — which
is a Prakrit word, often replaced by the more familiar Sanskrit word
dharma — a word meaning right conduct, duty, religion, law, social
justice, and responsibility.14 Dhamma, or dharma, was Ashoka’s
all-encompassing principle. In his First Pillar Edict, he announced, “For
this is my principle: to protect through Dhamma, to administer affairs
according to Dhamma, to please the people with Dhamma, to guard the empire
with Dhamma.”15
What specific reforms did Ashoka make in his wish to conquer the world
by morality or dharma? These included tolerance and respect for others,
even those with different religions and backgrounds, or, as the Twelfth
Rock Edict states, “other sects ought to be duly honoured in every
case”;16 love of the family; compassion, which includes respect
for others, kindness even toward slaves and prisoners, “reverence
toward elders, and gentleness to animals”;17 honesty; liberality
toward relatives, friends, and neighbours; moderation and self-control,
or as the Seventh Rock Edict says, “but even one who practices
great liberality but does not possess self-control, purity of mind, gratitude,
and firm devotion, is very mean”;18 a system of social welfare,
including medical centres for human beings and animals, the construction
of roads for good communication, along with the digging of wells and
the planting of trees for shade, and so on, all policies that he thought
best carried out by the centralized administration of government;19 an
unusual concern for the poor in rural areas, a concern that led him to
tour the countryside frequently;20 and ahimsa or non-violence, which
prohibited both the slaughter and sacrifice of animals.21 According to
V.R.R. Dikshitar, in the Sixth Rock Edict Ashoka said he was promoting
dharma for “the common good of the world,” and in the Tenth
Rock Edict, Ashoka stated plainly that he put forth the doctrine of dharma
for “happiness in the next world.”22
Many Indian historians are proud to embrace Kautilya’s Artha- sastra
as a practical book of rugged political realism — instead of the
impotent idealism of, say, Plato-that actually shaped history. D. D.
Kosambi notes, “The Greeks make excellent reading; the Indian treatise
[Arthasastra] worked infinitely better in practice for its own time and
place.”23 Ram Sharan Sharma maintains, “Kautilya furnishes
us as full and complete [a] definition of the state as was possible in
ancient times. The Greek thinkers hardly discuss the constituent elements
of the state.”24
Kautilya’s Arthasastra is thus a book of political realism, a book
analyzing how the political world does work and not very often stating
how it ought to work, a book that frequently discloses to a king what
calculating and sometimes brutal measures he must carry out to preserve
the state and the common good. One important question lurks in discussions
of Kautilya. Were the harsh actions he often recommended necessary for
the common good of India? Did Chandragupta and Bindusara have to act
in a violent and sometimes brutal fashion to defend India, bring order,
and establish unity?25 With the old order crumbling, with the Nanda kings
having proved cruel and inept, with enemies on India’s borders,
and with the threat of anarchy within, were not Kautilya’s harsh
measures necessary and have not his critics failed “to note the
nature of the times in which he lived”?26 In defence of Chandragupta
and Kautilya, Bhargava says, “all kinds of means might have been
considered necessary to restore peace with honour.”27 Put more
bluntly, did India need the harsh measures of Kautilya the realist in
order to enjoy the luxury of Ashoka the idealist?
Kautilya and His “ Science of Politics”
R. P. Kangle translates the word arthasastra as “science of politics,”28
a treatise to help a king in “the acquisition and protection of
the earth.”29 Others translate arthasastra in slightly different
ways: A. L. Basham says it is a “treatise on polity,”30 Kosambi
emphasizes the economic importance of the word in calling it a “science
of material gain,”31 and G. P. Singh labels it a “science
of polity.”32 I happen to prefer to translate arthasastra as a “science
of political economy,” but however one translates the word, Kautilya
claimed to be putting forth what Heinrich Zimmer rightly calls “timeless
laws of politics, economy, diplomacy, and war.” 33
Because he was offering his readers a science with which they could master
the world, Kautilya believed that having a passive stance toward the
world — for example, trusting in fate or relying on superstition — was
outlandish. “One trusting in fate,” noted Kautilya, “being
devoid of human endeavour, perishes.”34 His philosophy called for
action, not resignation: “The object slips away from the foolish
person, who continuously consults the stars;... what will the stars do?”35
In urging the king to rely on science and not the precepts of religion,
Kautilya separated political thought from religious speculation.36
Like Thomas Hobbes, Kautilya believed the goal of science was power.
His statements “Power is (possession of) strength” and “strength
changes the mind”37 show that Kautilya sought the power to control
not only outward behaviour, but also the thoughts of one’s subjects
and enemies. Probably his science could not promise all of that, but
the power offered by this science was extensive: “An arrow, discharged
by an archer, may kill one person or may not kill (even one); but intellect
operated by a wise man would kill even children in the womb.”38
Having as his first and primary goal to “destroy the enemies and
protect his own people,”39 the king could certainly accomplish
this with Kautilya’s science; in fact, “he, who is well-versed
in the science of politics, ... plays, as he pleases, with kings tied
by the chain of his intellect.”40 Beyond projecting the kingdom,
the King who uses Kautilya’s science can bring to himself and his
subjects the three goods of life — “material gain, spiritual
good and pleasures.”41 Wealth is the key to raising successful
armies and having a peaceful and just kingdom, and Kautilya’s political
science brings wealth: “The source of the livelihood of men is
wealth, in other words, the earth inhabited by men. The science which
is the means of the attainment and protection of that earth is the Science
of Politics.”42 Put another way, Kautilya’s book is the greatest
weapon a king can have, and political science is more important than — or
at least brings about —wealth, armies, and conquests.
In the world of international politics, it is only “natural” that
nations interact with each other through “dissension and force.”43
A political realist typically argues that there will always be conflict
in international relations and, in effect, truly by the strongest. Kautilya
was writing about 300 B.C.E., a century after Thucydides composed his
History of the Peloponnesian War and several decades after the Sophists
Callicles and Thrasymachus said to Plato that rule by the stronger was “natural.” Kautilya,
in the boldest of his promises, claimed that one who knows his science
of politics can conquer the world, that “one possessed of personal
qualities, though ruling over a small territory ... conversant with (the
science of) politics, does conquer the entire earth, never loses.”44
There is no modesty here. Kautilya’s science brings an abundance
of wealth and details correct strategies in politics and war. With this
science anyone can succeed: “And winning over and purchasing men
of energy, those possessed of might, even women, children, lame and blind
persons, have conquered the world.”45 Kautilya did not see this
conquest as something unjust. A king who carries out his duties, rules
according to law, metes out only just punishment, applies the law equally “to
his son and his enemy,” and protects his subjects not only goes “to
heaven” but “would conquer the earth up to its four ends.”46
Whereas Kautilya did not talk of glory, I do believe he was thinking
of something we might call “greatness,” but this would come
only with social justice and the morally correct ordering of the world.
The king, “after conquering the world, ... should enjoy it divided
into varnas [classes, sometimes castes] and asramas [Hindu stages of
life] in accordance with his own duty.”47
Kautilya apparently meant by the phrase “conquering the world” something
like conquering up to what Indians regarded as the natural borders of
India, from the Himalayas all the way south to the Indian Ocean, and
from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, although Kautilya said, “the
region of the sovereign ruler extends northwards between the Himavat
and the sea, one thousand yojanas [about nine thousand miles!] in extent
across.”48 As Kangle puts it, in the Indian tradition, the world
conqueror, or cakravartin, was not one who conquered “regions beyond
the borders of India.”49 in short, India did not include the land
of “barbarians” or mlecchas, those outside of Indian culture.50
Cakra means wheel it is possible that the Indian concept of the world
conqueror involved someone who ruled as far as his chariots could roll,
without obstacles or opposition.51 At any rate, surely Dikshitar is correct
in saying that this ideal of a world conqueror in ancient India led to
an “imperialism” that was “one of the causes of chronic
warfare,”52 although the Mauryan dynasty did bring comparative
peace for more than a century. As Narasingha Prosad Sil notes, “For
Kautilya a world conquest is the true foundation for world peace.”53
Diplomacy and Foreign Policy as Extensions
of Warfare
As a political realist, Kautilya assumed that every nation acts to maximize
power and self-interest, and therefore moral principles or obligations
have little or no force in actions among nations. While it is good to
have an ally, the alliance will last only as long as it is in that ally’s
as well as one’s own self-interest, because “an ally looks
to the securing of his own interests in the event of simultaneity of
calamities and in the event of the growth of the enemy’s power.”54
Whether one goes to war or remains at peace depends entirely upon the
self-interest of, or advantage to, one’s kingdom: “War and
peace are considered solely from the point of view of profit.”55
One keeps an ally not because of goodwill or moral obligation, but because
one is strong and can advance one’s own self-interest as well as
the self-interest of the ally, for “when one has an army, one’s
ally remains friendly, or (even) the enemy becomes friendly.”56
Because nations always act in their political, economic, and military
self-interest, even times of peace have the potential to turn abruptly
into times of war, allies into enemies, and even enemies into allies.
Burton Stein notes correctly that Kautilya was describing a foreign policy
not of a great empire like that of the Mauryas, but of small warring
states in incessant conflict, such as India experienced before the Mauryan
Empire.57 Kautilya probably assumed that peaceful empires cannot last
forever, and that conflict among smaller states is more common in history.
For Kautilya, this principle of foreign policy — that nations act
in their political, economic, and military self-interest — was
a timeless truth of his science of politics, or arthasastra. He did not
believe that nations never act in an altruistic manner — indeed,
Kautilya advocated humanitarian acts that also coincided with one’s
self-interest — but he did believe that one must assume, if entrusted
with political or military power, that one’s neighbours will eventually
act in their own interests. Put another way, one would be betraying one’s
own people if one did not assume a worst-case scenario. A nation forced
to rely on the kindness of neighbouring states is weak and, unless it
can change rapidly, doomed to destruction. This same assumption can be
seen in the work of Thucydides, who discussed foreign policy a century
before Kautilya, and in the thoughts of the Chinese Legalist Han Fei
Tzu, who wrote about fifty years after Kautilya’s Arthasastra.
Kautilya is most famous for outlining the so-called Mandala theory of
foreign policy, in which immediate neighbours are considered as enemies,
but any state on the other side of a neighbouring state is regarded as
an ally, or, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Imagine a series of
states to one’s west, and then number them starting with oneself.
States numbered 1, 3, 5, 7, and so on will likely be friends, whereas
states 2, 4, 6, 8, and so on will probably be enemies. (The same thing
can be done with concentric circles, which would look more like a mandala,
but it is difficult to envision these circles as states.) Kautilya put
this basic principle in a number of different ways, but most simply as, “One
with immediately proximate territory is the natural enemy.”58 Elsewhere
he stated this Mandala theory of foreign policy in more detail: “With
respect to the middle king [he himself], the third and the fifth constituents
are friendly elements. The second, the fourth, and the sixth are unfriendly
elements.”59
Kautilya assumed that he lived in a world of foreign relations in which
one either conquered or suffered conquest. He did not say to himself, “Prepare
for war, but hope for peace,” but instead, “Prepare for war,
and plan to conquer.” Diplomacy was just another weapon used in
the prolonged warfare that was always either occurring or being planned
for. After analyzing a king’s unique configuration of potential
enemies and allies, Kautilya then coldly calculated how that king must
think and act. “The king, endowed with personal excellences and
those of his material constituents, the seat of good policy, is the would-be
conqueror. Encircling him on all sides, with territory immediately next
to his is the constituent called the enemy. In the same manner, one with
territory separated by one (other territory) is the constituent called
the ally.”60
This much just repeats the principles of foreign policy discussed above,
but then notice how Kautilya regarded neighbouring states: “A neighbouring
prince possessed of the excellences of an enemy is the foe; one in calamity
is vulnerable; one without support or with weak support is fit to be
exterminated; in the reverse case, fit to be harassed or weakened. These
are the different types of enemies.”61 When Kautilya wrote of “exterminating” an
enemy, he meant killing only the leaders. As we will see in more detail
later, he thought the best policy toward ordinary soldiers and subjects
was to treat them well and recruit them.
In his excellent discussion of Kautilya’s Mandala theory of foreign
policy, Singh continues by correctly stating that this is ancient India’s
most notable contribution to political theory.62 Although Singh analyzes
Kautilya’s theory well, he makes a mistake in labelling the Mandala
theory an argument based on the doctrine of the balance of power. Kautilya,
in fact, was not offering a modern balance of power argument. In the
twentieth century, international relations theorists have defended the
doctrine of the balance of power, because equally armed nations will
supposedly deter each other, and therefore no war will result. One does
find this argument occasionally in Kautilya: “In case the gains
[of two allies of equal strength] are equal, there should be peace; if
unequal, fight,”63 or, “the conqueror should march if superior
in strength, otherwise stay quiet.”64 Whereas these balance of
power theorists suggest that a nation arm itself so that it can ensure
peace, Kautilya wanted his king to arm the nation in order to find or
create a weakness in the enemy and conquer, even to conquer the world,
or at least the subcontinent of India.
In reading his Arthasastra, we find no moral considerations other than
a king doing what is right for his own people. Rather, we discover merely
what Kautilya regarded as the nature of power. The king, he wrote, “should
march when by marching he would be able to weaken or exterminate the
enemy.”65 And Kautilya assumed that every other state would act
in a like manner because “even the equal who has achieved his object
tends to be stronger, and when augmented in power, untrustworthy; prosperity
tends to change the mind.”66 Just as did Thucydides, Kautilya regarded
a request for negotiations as a sign of weakness, indeed a desperate
act of a weak nation trying to survive: “A weaker king may bargain
with a stronger king with the offer of a gain equal to his troops, when
he is in a calamity or is addicted to what is harmful [that is, women,
wine, or gambling] or is in trouble. He with whom the bargain is made
should fight if capable of doing harm to him else he should make the
pact.”67
Whereas Carl von Clausewitz said that war is just an extension of domestic
politics,68 Kautilya argued that diplomacy is really a subtle act of
war, a series of actions taken to weaken an enemy and gain advantages
for oneself, all with an eye toward eventual conquest. A nation’s
foreign policy should always consist of preliminary movements toward
war: “In this way, the conqueror should establish in the rear and
in front, a circle (of kings) in his own interest. ... And in the entire
circle, he should ever station envoys and secret agents, becoming a friend
of the rivals, maintaining secrecy when striking again and again. The
affairs of one, who cannot maintain secrecy, ... undoubtedly perish,
like a broken boat in the ocean.”69 In Kautilya’s foreign
policy, even during a time of diplomacy and negotiated peace, a king
should still be “striking again and again” in secrecy.
Consider some of the measures Kautilya supported during times of peace.
If opposed by an alliance of nations, a king should secretly “sow
dissensions” within the alliance until one or more of the parties
in the alliance becomes weak.70 When he has weakened a neighbour, the
king “should violate the treaty.”71 Or, in another example, “The
wise (conqueror), making one neighbouring king fight with another neighbouring
king, should seize the territory of another, cutting off his party on
all sides.”72 In Kautilya’s view, two kinds of kingdoms confront
any king — those weak kingdoms fit to be exterminated and those
strong kingdoms that, over a long period of time, one can only secretly
harass and hope to weaken. He advised, “As between an enemy fit
to be harassed and an enemy fit to be exterminated, acquisition of land
from an enemy fit to be exterminated is preferable. For, the king fit
to be exterminated, being without support or with a weak support, is
deserted by his subjects when, on being attacked, he wishes to flee taking
with him the treasury and the army.”73 It is best to attack an
enemy that is “disunited,” rather than an enemy in which
the subjects have organized themselves into “bands.”74 During
times of peace and negotiations, Kautilya wanted spies and secret agents
to exploit the divisions within a country. Most countries, he maintained,
have four kinds of unhappy subjects — the enraged, the frightened,
the greedy, and the proud. Secret agents can widen and deepen these divisions
by inciting these four types of people to act against their king. The
opposing king “should win over the seducible in the enemy’s
territories by means of conciliation and gifts and those not seducible
by means of dissension and force.”75
Because a king abides by a treaty only for so long as it is advantageous,
Kautilya regarded all allies as future conquests when the time is ripe.
He wrote, for example, “That ally who remains common to the enemy
(and himself), he should divide that rogue from the enemy (and) when
divided, exterminate him, thereafter, (exterminate) the enemy.”76
Kautilya also sought to take a nation trying to remain neutral or “indifferent” and
secretly provoke war between that nation and a neighbouring kingdom,
until the neutral nation sought his help. Then Kautilya’s king
could “place him under (his) obligations.”77 Kautilya himself
had no moral qualms about breaking obligations or trust: “That
ally who might do harm or who, though capable, would not help in times
of trouble, he should exterminate him, when trustingly, he comes within
his reach.”78
Because foreign policy is just an extension of a nation’s wars,
the goal of foreign policy is not to end wars, but rather to ward off
defeats and to make sure one is successful in subsequent warfare. For
Kautilya, all ambassadors were potential spies with diplomatic immunity.79
Indeed, he wrote an entire section about how to “fight with the
weapon of diplomacy.”80
War
Kautilya thought there was a “science” of warfare, presumably
part of a larger science of politics. The Commandant of the Army, he
suggested, should be “trained in the science of all (kinds of)
fights and weapons, (and) renowned for riding on elephants, horses or
in chariots.”81 Just as Machiavelli advised his prince to attend
to matters of warfare constantly, so did Kautilya advise the king not
to leave military matters entirely to others: “Infantry, cavalry,
chariots and elephants should carry out practice in the arts outside
(the city) at sun-rise. ...
The king should constantly attend to that, and should frequently inspect
their arts.”82 Just as the king’s agents spied on officials
in the state bureaucracy, so too must the king have spies to assess the
loyalty of soldiers. What greater threat is there to a king than having
a military coup remove him from power? Kautilya recommended that “secret
agents, prostitutes, artisans and actors as well as elders of the army
should ascertain with diligence, the loyalty or disloyalty of soldiers.”83
In his section on foreign policy, Kautilya wrote a startling sentence: “Of
war, there is open war, concealed war and silent war.”84 Open war
is obvious, and concealed war is what we call guerrilla warfare, but
silent war is a kind of fighting that no other thinker I know of has
discussed. Silent war is a kind of warfare with another kingdom in which
the king and his ministers — and unknowingly, the people — all
act publicly as if they were at peace with the opposing kingdom, but
all the while secret agents and spies are assassinating important leaders
in the other kingdom, creating divisions among key ministers and classes,
and spreading propaganda and disinformation. According to Kautilya, “Open
war is fighting at the place and time indicated; creating fright, sudden
assault, striking when there is error or a calamity, giving way and striking
in one place, are types of concealed warfare; that which concerns secret
practices and instigations through secret agents is the mark of silent
war.”85 In silent warfare, secrecy is paramount, and, from a passage
quoted earlier, the king can prevail only by “maintaining secrecy
when striking again and again”86 This entire concept of secret
war was apparently original with Kautilya.87
Open warfare, Kautilya declared, is “most righteous,”88 but
he was willing to use any and all kinds of warfare to achieve consolidation
and expansion of the kingdom. There is no question of morality here — other
than the general good of one’s kingdom —but only of strategy.
Kautilya advised the king that “When he is superior in troops,
when secret instigations are made (in the enemy’s camp), when precautions
are taken about the season, (and) when he is on land suitable to himself,
he should engage in an open fight. In the reverse case, (he should resort
to) concealed fighting”89 How different all this is from the image
of war, certainly exaggerated, found in the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata,
or the Ramayana, of the central figure being the great hero in the chariot
who frightened all before him.90
In Book 12, Kautilya faced the situation in which one rules a weak kingdom
and is about to be attacked by a stronger king. He maintained that “there
are three kings who attack: the righteous conqueror, the greedy conqueror
and the demoniacal conqueror.”91 Whereas one can satisfy a righteous
conqueror simply by submitting to his rule, one must surrender “land
and goods” as well as money in order to satisfy a greedy conqueror.
The demoniacal conqueror, however, will stop only when he has seized “land,
goods, sons, wives and life.”92 (Kautilya apparently saw himself
as advising a righteous conqueror, although he did seek some tribute
from defeated peoples.) A weak king must give up everything if it is
inevitable, but he must find a way to survive to fight another day, preserving “his
body, not wealth; for, what regret can there be for wealth that is impermanent?”93
However, Kautilya did not advocate giving in to a conqueror without countermeasures
and recommended that the king use “diplomatic or concealed warfare”;
attempt to conciliate his enemy with gifts; direct secret agents to wield “weapons,
poison or fire” to destroy the enemy’s fort or camp; instruct
secret agents to promote a coup by a “pretender from his family
or a prince in disfavour”; send the demoniacal king listless elephants,
which had been poisoned; give to the enemy king treasonable or alien
troops; surrender to an entirely different king and give him all but
the capital city; have secret agents instigate a revolt among the subjects
of the enemy king; “employ assassins and poison-givers”;
use an astrologer to persuade a “high officer” of the enemy
king to try a coup; command secret agents to declare that the Regent
of the king is about to take power, while the agents kill leaders at
night and blame the murders on the Regent of the enemy king; use secret
agents in the countryside to protest oppression of the enemy king’s
bureaucracy and kill agents of the king hoping to start a revolt; or
finally, set fire to palaces and stores of grain and blame this on the
Regent of the enemy king.94
Kautilya often advocated using women as weapons of war. He certainly
regarded women as a source of satisfaction for troops at war, writing
that when setting up camp for the army, “courtesans (should be
encamped) along the highways.”95 And Kautilya certainly saw women
as an addictive source of pleasure, worse than wine or gambling, that
a good king must enjoy only in moderation: “Deliverance is possible
in gambling, without deliverance is addiction to women. Failure to show
himself, aversion from work, absence of material good and loss of spiritual
good by allowing the right time to pass, weakness in administration and
addiction to drink (result from addiction to women).”96 Precisely
because women are such a powerful addiction, a king can use them against
an enemy; for example, if a king is trying to undermine a ruling oligarchy,
he “should make chiefs of the ruling council infatuated with women
possessed of great beauty and youth. When passion is roused in them,
they should start quarrels by creating belief (about their love) in one
and by going to another.”97 A woman supposedly in love with one
leader should go to another, profess her love for him, urge him to murder
the first leader, and “then she should proclaim, ‘My lover
has been killed by so and so.”98 Obviously such tactics create
mistrust among leaders of an oligarchy and also bring about the death
of key enemies. In the chapters about how a weak king can stave off disastrous
conquest by a stronger king, Kautilya again turned, as just one possible
tactic among many, to women as weapons of war, stating that “keepers
of prostitutes should make the (enemy’s) army chiefs infatuated
with women possessed of great beauty and youth. When many or two of the
chiefs feel passion for one woman, assassins should create quarrels among
them.”99 Secret agents can destroy high officers in the enemy army
either with poison or with “love-winning medicines.”100
Speaking of justice to an enemy about to conquer is the last tactic of
the weak, just as Thucydides showed in his recreation of the debate about
Melos. In Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War, the Melians
try to talk about justice and fair play when facing the prospect of conquest
by the Athenians, who contend that such arguments are the last, desperate
tactic of those facing defeat, which the Melians “know as well
as we do.” The Athenians tell the Melians “that, when these
matters are discussed by practical people, the standard of justice depends
on the equality of power to compel and that in fact the strong do what
they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.”101
After that both the Melians and the Athenians debate only what is in
the self-interest of Athens. Similarly, willing to try all tactics, even
desperate ones, Kautilya made up a powerful speech to be given by a weak
king to the king about to conquer, a speech offering a mixture of moral
exhortation and arguments based on the self-interest of the conqueror.
In this speech, Kautilya depicted an envoy saying to the conquering king
that he should accept a treaty and “pay regard to [his] spiritual
and material well-being”; that conquering a kingdom willing to
surrender on reasonable terms is an “impious act”; that battle
is not in the conquering king’s self-interest, since “to
fight with brave men who have given up all hope of life is a rash deed” and
the conqueror will lose troops and “material good”; that
such a conquest will only unite his enemies all the more; that the conquering
king’s enemies are only waiting for him to be weakened in order
to attack; that he himself is risking death; that war itself in which
men on each side die is “an impious act”; and that he should
not listen to “enemies masquerading as friends” who are giving
him false advice as to his real self-interest.102 In much the same way
as Thucydides, only more dramatically, Kautilya demonstrated the realities
of diplomacy and war as well as the ineffectiveness of moral pleas when
confronted by a superior power.
Machiavelli longed for the legions of ancient Rome; Kautilya wanted legions,
but he wanted them preceded by elephants, which acted in the ancient
world a bit like modern tanks. So valuable were they that Kautilya wrote, “destruction
of an enemy’s forces is principally dependent on elephants.”103
As shown earlier, Kautilya considered the treasury most valuable in raising
an army, procuring equipment (including elephants), and preparing for
war. After the treasury and the army, Kautilya focused on the importance
of the fort, on which depends “the treasury, the army, silent war,
restraint of one’s own party, use of armed forces, receiving allied
troops, and warding off enemy troops and forest tribes. And in the absence
of a fort, the treasury will fall into the hands of enemies. ... those
with forts are not exterminated.”104 (A mountain fort is more valuable
than a river fort, because it “is easy to protect, difficult to
lay siege to, difficult to climb.”105)
Kautilya was inconsistent in ranking the importance of the treasury,
the army, and forts, but it seems that the people, or a popular army,
are the most important of all. As he put it, “one should seek a
fortress with men.”106 Well before Machiavelli defended a republican
army, well before Mao Zedong defended a people’s war as invincible,
Kautilya urged the king to be popular with the people and rely on the
countryside. “If weak in might, [a king] should endeavour to secure
the welfare of his subjects. The countryside is the source of all undertakings;
from them comes might.”107 The “undertakings” of forts,
the treasury, and the army all depend ultimately on the people of the
countryside, where are found “bravery, firmness, cleverness and
large numbers.”108 Kautilya here was cautiously making a revolution
in warfare, relying not quite as much on the warrior class of kshatriyas.
India was divided into four classes or castes (varnas): brahmins or priests;
kshatriyas or warriors and rulers; vaishyas or farmers and traders; and
shudras or labourers. The Dharmasutras, or law codes, written before
Kautilya, urged an army of kshatriyas and, in an emergency, also brahmins
(priests) and vaishyas (farmers or merchants). Kautilya had no use for
brahmin troops — ”by prostration, an enemy may win over Brahmana
troops” — but he liked the energy, numbers, and strength
of shudras, agricultural labourers treated much like serfs.109 Kautilya’s
praise of ordinary men from the lower two varnas was unusual in the ancient
world. He wrote, “As between land with the support of a fort and
one with the support of men, the one with the support of men is preferable.
For, a kingdom is that which has men. Without men, like a barren cow,
what could it yield?”110? Says Sharma, “Kautilya alone holds
that the army made up of vaishyas and sudras is important.”111
Kautilya apparently believed that an army of kshatriyas was best; warriors
were supposed to find their “highest duty and pleasure” by
dying in battle.112 Megasthenes, a Greek ambassador to Chandragupta Maurya’s
court, suggested that as much as one fifth of the population under Chandragupta’s
empire were warriors or kshatriyas.113 In addition, Kautilya clearly
argued that sections of the army should consist “mostly of persons
from the same region, caste or profession.”114 Using a little common
sense, we can see that he is suggesting that men of an army should know
one another, that an army of friends fighting side by side is the most
difficult to defeat. On the subject of the king’s location during
battle, for example, he wrote: “A bare army, without standards,
consisting of warriors related as fathers, sons and brothers, should
be the place for the king. An elephant or a chariot should be the vehicle
for the king, guarded by cavalry.”115 (Kautilya wanted a man who
looked like the king to lead the army into battle.116)
And thus, a king’s power, for Kautilya, is in the end tied to the
power and popular energy of the people, without which a king can be conquered,
for “not being rooted among his subjects, [a king] becomes easy
to uproot.”117 Although Kautilya wrote of using money to raise
an army and even of “purchasing heroic men,”118 he was not
advocating mercenaries who fought only for pay, but he was merely outlining
the cost of paying, supplying, and feeding soldiers. He believed that “hereditary
troops are better than hired troops”119; in other words, troops
made of men born in the kingdom and thus loyal to the king since birth
are better than strangers fighting for money, as Machiavelli noted so
often later. It is not at all clear, remarked Kautilya, that “inviting
alien troops with money”120 is an advantage or a disadvantage.
Which States to Attack
In Kautilya’s view of the world, expansion by a prosperous kingdom
was inevitable, natural, and good, and as a consequence, moral considerations
did not enter into his deliberations, only what was for the good of the
kingdom. If a king can win, then he should go to war. As Kangle says,
the Arthasastra “preaches an ideal of conquest.”121 But who
should be attacked? This is not an ethical question. The decision takes
only careful calculation and observes the principle that a king should
attack weakness. Certain states are vulnerable. If a state is unjust,
then its people will welcome a deliverer from a tyrannical king; if a
kingdom is weakened from a poor economy, or if a state has experienced
some kind of calamity ranging from fires to flood or famine, then a king “should
make war and march.”122 As Rajendra Prasad says, Kautilya believed
that “whenever an enemy king is in trouble, and his subjects are
exploited, oppressed, impoverished and disunited, he should be immediately
attacked after one proclamation of war.”123
Every adjacent kingdom should be looked upon as an enemy and classified.
If a kingdom is strong, Kautilya called it a “foe”; if a
kingdom is suffering calamity, then it is “vulnerable”; if
a kingdom has weak or no popular support, then “it is fit to be
exterminated.” Even if one cannot attack a strong neighbour or “foe,” one
can harass it silently and weaken it over time.124 What Kautilya called
an enemy “fit to be exterminated” was an enemy with little
or no popular support, an enemy whose subjects quite likely would desert
to Kautilya’s attacking army.125 And Kautilya argued, or perhaps
assumed, that imperial expansion was the correct goal: “After conquering
the enemy’s territory, the conqueror should seek to seize the middle
king, after succeeding over him, the neutral king. This is the first
method of conquering the world. ... And after conquering the world he
should enjoy it divided into varnas... in accordance with his own duty.”126
In Kautilya’s mind, treaties were agreements between kingdoms of
roughly equal power, agreements a king should break if they are no longer
advantageous, and thus, believing that a treaty will provide a wall of
protection against a strong enemy would be a foolish act. If an ally
with whom a king has a treaty becomes weakened, that is, if the treaty
is no longer to a king’s advantage, then the king “should
violate the treaty,”127 or, “when after making a pact he
intends to violate it, ... he should demand a gain not received or more.”128
Because Kautilya thought that promises or agreements were strategies
and not moral obligations, he had no moral qualms about violating a promise
and recommended that “The commander of a frontier fort, by offering
the surrender of the fort, should get part of the (enemy’s) troops
inside and destroy [them] when full of trust.”129 to protect his
own people, a king has an obligation to weaken or destroy any potential
enemy: “That ally who might do harm or who, though capable, would
not help in times of trouble, he should certainly exterminate him, when
trustingly, he comes within his reach.”130 Charles Drekmeier is
certainly correct in saying that, “In outlining military campaigns
Kautilya disregards the traditional humanitarian principles laid down
to regulate the conduct of war.”131 In Book 9, Kautilya listed
various “hindrances to gain”; among them were pity, piousness,
and “regard for the other world.”132 In short, in waging
war, compassion and morality and religious principles have no place,
unless they are useful for bringing victory.
In another way, moral considerations did enter into Kautilya’s
calculations. Whereas it is best to wage war against an unjust king who
has no public support, it is wise to avoid war with a righteous king
whose subjects will fight energetically on his behalf. Kautilya noted
that if one has a choice about where to attack, it is always best to
attack an unjust kingdom, because “The subjects help the king who
is justly behaved....
...Therefore, [a king] should march only against [an enemy] with disaffected
subjects.”133 Once more, morality is sometimes advantageous and
in one’s self-interest, for “The unjustly behaved [king]
would cause even settled land to be laid waste.”134 By being unjust,
a king loses all popular support, thereby weakening the kingdom and making
it easily conquered: “The king fit to be exterminated, being without
support or with weak support, is deserted by his subjects when, on being
attacked, he wishes to flee taking with him the treasury and the army.”135
If a king has a choice of attacking a strong king who is unjust or a
weak king who is just, he should actually attack the stronger king, because
the stronger king’s subjects, weary of injustice, will not help
the strong king and might even join the war against him.136 An unjust
state is really two states, already at war with one another, the rulers
and the ruled.137 Kautilya paused to remind a king how practical it was
to be just toward his subjects because “Subjects, when impoverished,
become greedy; when greedy they become disaffected; when disaffected
they either go over to the enemy or themselves kill the master. Therefore,
[a king] should not allow these causes of decline, greed and disaffection
among the subjects to arise, or, if arisen, should immediately counter-act
them.”138 A domestic political policy of social justice is, in
the long run, the best defence against outside enemies, because “one
attacking a righteous king is hated by his own people and by others;
one attacking an unrighteous king is liked (by them).”139
Kautilya maintained that a humanitarian policy toward a defeated people
was practical. If a king massacres those whom he has defeated, then he
frightens all those kingdoms that surround him and terrifies even his
own ministers.140 Rather, one gains more land and new and loyal subjects
if one treats the defeated in a magnanimous manner. Certainly a conquering
king must silently kill those former leaders loyal to the defeated king,
but those who approach him promising loyalty should be treated generously: “He
should not use towards them insults, injuries, contemptuous words or
reproaches. And after promising them safety, he should favour them like
a father.”141 Because a conquering king intends to expand his territory
and acquire new subjects, he must treat a defeated people well. The victor, “after
gaining new territory, ... should cover the enemy’s faults with
his own virtue, his virtues with double virtues. He should carry out
what is agreeable and beneficial to his subjects by doing his own duty
as laid down, grant-
ing favours, giving exemptions, making gifts and showing honour.”142
Indeed, the conquering king should “order the release of all prisoners
and render help to the distressed, the helpless and the diseased.”143
It is sound military policy to “establish a righteous course of
conduct.”144 What is moral is once more practical. Just as one
can kill a traitor, but cannot use force “against a multitude of
people,”145 so one can kill the leaders of a defeated kingdom,
but must bring the great majority of the citizens peacefully into one’s
own kingdom. In this instance, Kautilya was following the traditional
advice given in the Dharmasutras that “Aryans condemn the killing
of those who have thrown down their weapons, who have dishevelled hair,
who fold their hands in supplication, or who are fleeing.”146 And
by these actions, Kautilya fit his own definition of a righteous conqueror
who sought victory and the submission of the enemy, but not greedy pillaging
or lawless killing.147
Kautilya demanded much of his soldiers, because they had to be brave
and fierce in battle, but gentle and kind toward those whom they had
defeated: “When attacking the enemy’s fort or camp, they
should grant safety to those fallen down, those turning back, those surrendering,
those with loose hair, those without weapons, those disfigured by terror
and to those not fighting.”148 After a king has subdued the country
and taken care of the people, he should “grant safety to the countryside,” settle
subjects down to farm the land, and “induce” even those who
had fought against him to settle down and farm (even by giving tax exemptions),
all because the countryside needs farmers and the new kingdom wants prosperity. “For,” according
to Kautilya, “there is no country without people and no kingdom
without a country,” meaning a prosperous — not a ravished — countryside.149
Both Sun Tzu (c. 400-320 B.C.E.) and Machiavelli, in books entitled The
Art of War, pointed out that a general should always give an enemy the
hope of escape and never surround a nearly defeated enemy completely.150
Enemy soldiers who have hope of living will eventually run for safety,
and they are easily killed, but soldiers surrounded with no choice but
to fight or die will fight with an unimagined ferocity. Kautilya was
arguing something similar, to let the enemy soldiers know that the king
will be generous in victory, will allow defeated soldiers to return to
their land, and will take no reprisals except toward the leaders of the
opposing kingdom, against whom “he should act as in ‘the
infliction of (secret) punishment.”151 After such humanitarian
policies toward the defeated populace have become widely known, ordinary
enemy soldiers will surrender in great numbers. By contrast, if a king
announces that he will massacre every soldier, then all will fight to
the death. Said Kautilya, “The vehemence of one returning again
to the fight and despairing of his life becomes irresistible; therefore,
[a king] should not harass a broken enemy.”152 Similarly, he advised
that “to fight with brave men who have given up all hope of life
is a rash deed.”153
A conquering king should reassure a defeated people that not much, except
their rulers, will change. The king who has triumphed “should adopt
a similar character, dress, language and behaviour (as the subjects).
And he should show the same devotion in festivals in honour of deities
of the country, festive gatherings and sportive amusements.”154
He should keep his promises, especially to those who helped him win,
he should honour the local “deities,” and he should make
grants of land and money to men distinguished in wisdom and piety.155
And the conquering king should show his goodwill toward the defeated
by instituting “a righteous custom, not initiated before.”156
While the victorious king is reassuring the general population with generous
policies, he must continue to kill anyone who is dangerous and those
who are disgruntled: “He should put down by silent punishment those
capable of injuring [him] or those brooding on the master’s destruction.”157
In what might be a surprising observation about those whom the king has
killed, Kautilya commented that if one must kill a dangerous person,
the king must leave his property untouched and “shall not covet
the land, property, sons or wives of the slain one.”158 Kautilya
had the same insight into human emotions that Machiavelli had nearly
eighteen hundred years later. Said Machiavelli, “And when [the
prince] is obliged to take the life of any one, ... he must abstain from
taking the property of others, for men forget more easily the death of
their father than the loss of their patrimony.”159 A king becomes
hated more readily for taking the property that belongs to a family than
for killing the head of the family.
Using Secret Agents, Assassins, Disinformation, and Propaganda
Kautilya was ready to use almost any means of violence in fighting a
war, although he wanted his king to direct his violence toward the
leaders of the opposing kingdom and not toward ordinary people. For
example, Kautilya discussed at length how to employ poison, but almost
always directed its use at key enemy commanders. He advised that when “giving
unadulterated wine to the army chiefs, [the secret agent] should give
them (wine) mixed with poison when they are in a state of intoxication.”160
Whereas Kautilya did suggest that an army laying siege to a fort try
to “defile the water,”161 this measure seems designed to
make those in the fort surrender from illness, not to kill everyone
in the fort. Mostly, Kautilya addressed the question of how to assassinate
a king — by hiding “inside the image of a deity or a hollow
wall” and emerging at night, by making something heavy fall on
the king, or by using women as secret agents to “drop on him
serpents or poisonous fire and smoke.”162 Kautilya was willing
to use any possible means to assassinate an enemy king-drown him, burn
him with fire, suffocate him with smoke, or even use crocodiles as
assassins, not to mention employing women and children as poison-givers.163
The wonder of assassination, according to Kautilya, is that it is so
efficient, “for, an assassin, single-handed, may be able to achieve
his end with weapon, poison and fire. He does the work of a whole army
or more.”164 In an unrealistic passage in the Dharmasutras that
Kautilya most certainly ignored, the authors directed that a king should
not “strike with barbed or poisoned weapons”!165
Aside from assassination, another method used to defeat an enemy without
full-scale battle was to arrange for the enemy to quarrel and fight among
itself. We have already seen how Kautilya intended to use beautiful women
to instigate fights among high officers or officials. If the promise
of pleasure can ignite quarrels, so can the promise of power. One should
arrange for a secret agent, disguised as an astrologer, to tell a high
officer that he has all the marks of a king, and similarly arrange for
a female secret agent, the wife of this officer, to complain that the
king wants to keep her in his harem. A third secret agent who is a cook
or a waiter should lie, saying that the king has ordered him or her to
poison the high officer. “Thus with one or two or three means,” according
to Kautilya, the king “should incite the high officers one by one
to fight or desert” the enemy king.166 In a discussion about sowing
dissensions among oligarchies, Kautilya suggested that “assassins
should start quarrels by injuring objects, cattle or men at night,” “should
stir up princelings enjoying low comforts with (a longing for) superior
comforts,” and “should start quarrels among the followers
of the chiefs in the oligarchy by praising the opponents in brothels
and taverns.”167 The goals were constantly to “sow discord” and
to foment and inflame “mutual hatred, enmity and strife.”168
Much of this advice violated the tacit code of war found in the great
Indian epics. The assassination of envoys and the use of poison were
considered to be against the rules of warfare and thus not honourable.
Said The Laws of Manu, “Fighting in battle, [the king] should not
kill his enemies with weapons that are concealed, barbed, or smeared
with poison or whose points blaze with fire.”169 Spies were common
in Indian history, but not spies who assassinated enemy officials and
started quarrels among enemy leaders.170 An excellent book on warfare
in ancient India discusses spies, but does not mention secret agents
as assassins.171 Once more Kautilya judged the means by the result, and
the result he sought was the general good of his kingdom.
Another military tactic that Kautilya praised was what we now call disinformation
or propaganda designed to demoralize or frighten enemy soldiers. For
example, secret agents should appear as messengers to troops saying, “Your
fort has been burnt down or captured; a revolt by a member of your family
has broken out; or, your enemy or a forest chieftain has risen (against
you).”172 After spreading the rumour that the Regent or a high
administrator of the enemy king has announced that the king is in trouble
and may not come back alive and thus people should take wealth by force
and kill their enemies, secret agents should kill and steal at night,
trying to cause civil upheaval: “When the rumour has spread far
and wide, assassins should rob citizens at night and slay chiefs, (saying
at the time), “Thus are dealt with [those] who do not obey the
Regent.”173 Then they should put bloody evidence in the Regent’s
residence. Again, secret agents should spread rumours, always in a confidential
manner, that the king is furious with such and such a leader. Then these
agents should assassinate key leaders and say “to those who have
not been slain,... ‘This is what we had told you; he who wants
to remain alive should go away.”174 Kautilya was especially fond
of the tactic of utilizing disinformation to flatter a second or third
son and thus persuade him to try a coup against his own family.175 Convinced
that disinformation could also inspire his own troops, Kautilya wanted
agents to announce fabricated victories and fictitious defeats of the
enemy: “On the occasion of a night-battle, [secret agents] should
strike many drums, fixed beforehand as a signal, and announce, ‘We
have entered it; the kingdom is won.”176
Much of this disinformation made use of religion. Placed strategically,
astrologers “should fill [the king’s] side with enthusiasm
by proclaiming his omniscience and association with divine agencies,
and should fill the enemy’s side with terror.”177 Once more
the needs of the state are primary, and the king commands religion to
serve the state: “He should make (Brahmins) recite blessings invoking
victory and securing heaven.”178 Singers and poets should “describe
the attainment of heaven by the brave and the absence of heaven for cowards.”179
Secret agents who have infiltrated the enemy side should use animal blood
in order to “cause an excessive flow (of blood) from honoured images
of deities,” and then interpret that as a sure sign of future defeat
for the enemy.180 Kautilya wanted anyone associated with religion or
superstition — “soothsayers, interpreters of omens, astrologers,
reciters of Puranas” and so on181-to proclaim to his own troops
and to the enemy the king’s “association with divinities” or “his
meeting with divinities,”182 creating confidence on his own side
and simultaneously terror and misgivings among enemy soldiers. Those
priests in charge of interpreting omens must make certain that dreams
and other signs are always favourable to the king’s efforts and
unfavourable to the enemy.183 Every kind of superstition can be useful.184
And for Kautilya, religious authorities must be for hire.
In addition to brave and well-equipped soldiers, warfare requires deception,
and over and again Kautilya advocated the above measures and more for
deceiving both his own and the enemy troops. If caught behind enemy lines,
Kautilya outlined ways for one to escape “in the disguise of a
heretical monk,” “decked out as a corpse,” or “wearing
a woman’s garb.”185 And he was eager to terrify the enemy
by such multiple and varied means as by using “machines, by the
employment of occult practices, through assassins slaying those engaged
in something else, by magical arts, by (a show of) association with divinities,
through carts, by frightening with elephants,” and so on.186 A
favourite tactic in battle was to pretend to be defeated, retreat in
apparent disorder, and then attack a disorganized and unsuspecting enemy.
The leader, “feigning a rout with treasonable, alien and forest
troops, ... should strike at the (pursuing enemy when he has) reached
unsuitable ground.”187 At all times, Kautilya wanted his king to
use deception, play roles, and create appearances. Why risk heavy losses
or even defeat in battle if deception and assassination can weaken or
even defeat the enemy? Even if a king is forced to surrender in order
to survive, Kautilya wanted him to pretend that his surrender was “an
excellent thing” until he was clever or strong enough to fight
back.188 Warfare was violent, but it also called for one who could calmly
create false impressions, like a poker player.
Conclusion
To return to Machiavelli’s The Art of War after reading the military
writings of Kautilya is jolting. It becomes readily apparent that Machiavelli
is not even trying to tell us something new about warfare, because he
believed the ancient Greeks and Romans knew it all — aside from
such things as artillery. What did Machiavelli want to resurrect from
ancient Rome and transport to Renaissance Florence? He wanted Rome’s
battalions and legions and cohorts, and maybe Scipio once again arrayed
across the plain from Hannibal. And thus compared to Kautilya and Sun
Tzu, Machiavelli’s writings on warfare are tired and tedious, filled
with nostalgia for long-dead legions that once gained glory. He wanted
the public battlefield, the grand spectacle, fame for some and cowardice
for others. Sun Tzu and Kautilya did not care a whit for glory and fame.
They wanted to win at all costs and to keep casualties — on both
sides — to a minimum. Said Sun Tzu “For to win one hundred
victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue
the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.”189 They were
also prepared to win in ways Machiavelli would regard as dishonourable
and disgraceful-assassination, disinformation, causing quarrels between
ministers by bribes or by means of jealousy over a beautiful woman planted
as a secret agent, and so on. Machiavelli — who offers no systematic
discussion of even guerrilla warfare — would have been easily outmatched
by generals reading either Su Tzu or Kautilya.
End Notes
1. Max Weber, “Politics as a Vocation,” in
Weber: Selections in Translation, ed. W. g. Runciman, trans. Eric Matthews
(Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1978), 212-25, see 220.
2. Stanley Wolpert, A New History of India, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1982), 60.
3. Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations
(New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1978), 12.
4. Kautilya, The Arthasastra, 2d ed., ed. and trans. R. P. Kangle, Part
II of The Kautiliya Arthasastra (Delhi: Motilal Banardisass, 1922), book
15, chapter 1, line 73, page 516; hereafter, 15.1.73: 516. In quotations
from the Kangle translation of The Arthasastra, parentheses indicate
insertions by the translator, and brackets indicate insertions by the
author.
5. Radha Kumud Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times, 4th ed. (Delhi:
Motilal) Banarsidass, 1988 [1966], 31, 28-33.
6. Arun Bhattacharjee, History of Ancient India (New Delhi: Sterling
Publishers, 1979), 143-48, 173; Purushottam Lal Bhargava, Chandragupta
Maurya: A Gem of Indian History, 2d rev. ed. (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld,
1996), 114.
7. Wolpert, A New History of India, 59, Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya
and His times, 2; Bhattacherjee, History of Ancient India, 173.
8. Wolpert, A New History of India, 59; Romila Thapar, A History of India
(Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1966), 79.
9. Wolpert, A New History of India, 58; H. C. Raychaudhuri, “Chandragupta
and Bindusara,” in K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, ed., Age of the Nandas
and Mauryas, 2d ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1996 [1967]), 132-70,
see 158; A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, 2d rev. ed. (New York:
Hawthorn Books, 1963), 350.
10. Hermann Kulke and Dietmar Rothermund, A History of India (New Delhi:
Rupa and Co., 1991), 60.
11. Bhargava, Chandragupta Maurya, 102.
12. M. V. Krishna Rao, Studies in Kautilya, 2d ed. (New Delhi: Munshi
Ram Manohar Lal, 1958), 232.
13. K. A. Nilakanta Sastri, “Asoka and His Successors,” in
Sastri, Age of the Nandas and Mauryas, 202-48, see 202.
14. V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, The Mauryan Polity (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1993 [1932]), 240-59; John W. Spellman, Political Theory of Ancient India
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), 98; Julius Lipner Hindus: Their
Religious beliefs and Practices (London: Routledge, 1994), 83-88.
15. Romila Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas (Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1997), 174.
16. Sastri, “Asoka and His Successors,” 225.
17. Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 162.
18. Sastri, “Asoka and His Successors,” 235.
19. Thapar, Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, 70, 152, 180, 158.
20. Ibid., 180-81.
21. Sastri, “Asoka and His Successors,” 237.
22. Dikshitar, The Mauryan Polity, 258.
23. D. D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India (Delhi:
Vikas Publishing House, 1994 [1964]), 141.
24. Ram Sharan Sharma, Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in
Ancient India, 3d rev. ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991), 38.
25. Romila Thapar, The Mauryas Revisited (Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi and
Company, 1987), 6; Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times, 51, 59.
26. Bhasker Anand Saletore, Ancient Indian Political Thought and Institutions
(London: Asia Publishing House, 1963), 51.
27. Bhargava, Chandragupta Maurya, 102.
28. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 1.1.1: 1, and 7. 18.43: 384.
29. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 1.1.1: 1.
30. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, 51.
31. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India, 14.
32. G. P. Singh, Political Thought in Ancient India (New Delhi: D. K.
Printworld, 1993), 7.
33. Heinrich Zimmer, Philosophies of India (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1967), 36.
34. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.11.34: 358
35. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.4.26: 419.
36. Sharma, Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in Ancient India,
265-66.
37. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 6.2.31: 319, and 7.14.2: 366.
38. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.6.51: 453.
39. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 14.3.88: 509.
40. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.18.43-44: 384.
41. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.7.60: 431.
42. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 15.1.1-2: 512.
43. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.7.68-69: 431.
44. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 6.1.18: 317
45. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.1.9:406
46. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 3.1.41-43: 195.
47. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.4.62: 491.
48. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.1.18: 407.
49. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 407, footnote by Kangle; see also V.R. Ramachandra
Dikshitar. War in Ancient India, 2d ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1987 [1948]), 38-39; Raychaudhuri, “Chandragupta and Bindusara,” 156;
L. K. Mahapatra, “Kingship in India and Southeast Asia: A Field
of Transcultural Interaction,” Journal of the Indian Anthropological
Society 30 (November 1995): 201-15, see 205.
50. Indra, Ideologies of War and Peace in Ancient India (Hoshiarpur,
India: Vishveshvaranand Institute Publications, 1957), 54-55.
51. Spellman, Political Theory of Ancient India, 173.
52. Dikshitar, War in Ancient India, 38.
53. Narasingha Prosad Sil, “Political Morality vs. Political Necessity:
Kautilya and Machiavelli Revisited,” Journal of Asian History 19,
no. 2, 101-42, see 123.
54. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 8.1.59: 389.
55. Kalidas Nag and V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, “The Diplomatic
Theories of Ancient India and the Arthashastra,” Journal of Indian
History 6, no. 1 (1927): 15-35, see 15.
56. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 8.1.56: 389.
57. Burton Stein, A History of India (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998),
78.
58. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 6.2.19: 318.
59. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.18.1: 380.
60. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 6.2.13: 318.
61. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 6.2.13: 318, my emphasis.
62. Singh, Political Thought in Ancient India, 115-30, especially 127;
see also N.N. Law, “Studies in Kautila,” Indian Historical
Quarterly 7 (1931): 464-74 and 709-15; and N.N. Law, “Studies in
Kautila,” Indian Historical Quarterly 8 (1932): 54-63.
63. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.6.3: 338.
64. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.1.1: 406.
65. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.1.44: 408.
66. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.5.47: 337.
67. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.7.7: 343.
68. John Keegan, A History of Warfare (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993),
3-24.
69. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.13.42-44: 366.
70. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.14.2: 366.
71. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.14.7: 367.
72. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.6.15: 339.
73. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.10.26-27: 354.
74. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.11.18: 356.
75. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 1.13.12, 1-11: 32.
76. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.18.36: 383.
77. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.18.37: 383.
78. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.18.40: 383.
79. Bimal Kanti Majumdar, The Military System in Ancient India (Calcutta:
Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1960), 64.
80. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.2: 462; see Indra, Ideologies of War and
Peace in Ancient India, 80-81.
81. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 2.33.9: 180.
82. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 5.3.35-36: 304.
83. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 5.3.47: 305.
84. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.6.17: 339.
85. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.6.40-41: 342.
86. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.13.43: 366.
87. Majumdar, The Military System in Ancient India, 63.
88. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.26: 440.
89. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.1-2: 438.
90. Majumdar, The Military System in Ancient India, 29.
91. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.1.10: 460; see Nag and Dikshitar, “The
Diplomatic Theories of Ancient India and the Arthashastra,” 28.
92. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.1.11-16: 460
93. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.1.32: 462.
94. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.17-32: 461-62; 12.2.8-33: 462-64; see also
N.N. Law, “Dvaidhibhava in the Kautilya,” Indian Historical
Quarterly 7 (1931): 253-58, see 258.
95. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.1.10: 434.
96. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 8.3.53-54: 395.
97. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 11.1.34-35: 457.
98. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 11.1.37, 39: 457.
99. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.2.11-12: 463.
100. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.2.14: 463.
101. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Rex Warner
(Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1972), 402.
102. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.2.1-7: 462.
103. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.11.16: 356; see Arvind Kumar Srivastava,
The Ancient Indian Army: Its Administration and Organisation (Delhi:
Ajanta Publications, 1985), 80-81.
104. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 8.1.38-40: 388.
105. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.10.33: 355.
106. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.15.11: 370.
107. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.14.18-19: 368.
108. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 8.1.29-30: 387.
109. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.2.21-24: 412; Ram Sharan Sharma, Sudras
in Ancient India, 3d rev. ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1990), 173-74.
110. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.11.23-25: 357.
111. Sharma, Sudras in Ancient India, 237.
112. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.2.24: 412.
113. Swaswati Das, Social Life in Ancient India: 800 B.C-183 B.C. (Delhi:
B.R. Publishing Corporation, 1994), 143-44.
114. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.2.9: 411.
115. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.39-40: 441.
116. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.42: 441.
117. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 8.2.18: 392.
118. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.1.7: 406.
119. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.2.14: 412.
120. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.7.10: 428.
121. R. P. Kangle, The Kautiliya Arthasastra, vol. 3, A Study (Delhi:
Motilal Banardisass, 1992 [1965]), 263.
122. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.4.15: 332-33.
123. Rajendra Prasad, Politico-Geographical Analysis of the Arthashastra
(New Delhi: Inter-India Publications, 1989), 58-60.
124. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 6.2.16: 318.
125. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.10.26-27: 354.
126. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.4.54-55, 62: 490-91.
127. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.14.7: 367.
128. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.8.8: 347.
129. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.5.25: 472, my emphasis.
130. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.18.40: 383, my emphasis.
131. Charles Drekmeier, Kingship and Community in Early India (Stanford,
Calif: Stanford University Press, 1962), 212.
132. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.4.25: 419.
133. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.5.10-11: 334; Nag and Dikshitar, “The
Diplomatic Theories of Ancient India and the Arthashastra,” 18.
134. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.11.31: 358.
135. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.10.27: 354.
136. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.5.16-18: 335.
137. Harit Krishna Deb, “The Kautiliya Arthasastra on Forms of
Government,” Indian Historical Quarterly 14 (June 1938): 366-79,
see 370.
138. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.5.27-28: 335.
139. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.13.12: 362; V. Nagarajan, Evolution of
the Social Polity of Ancient India from Manu to Kautilya, vol. 2 (Nagpur:
Dattsons, 1992), 165.
140. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.16.30-31: 375.
141. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.16.22-23: 374.
142. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.3-4: 491.
143. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.11: 492.
144. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.14: 492.
145. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.6.2-5: 422.
146. Dharmasutras: The Law Codes of Ancient India, ed. and trans. Patrick
Olivelle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 53; see also The
Laws of Manu, ed. and trans. Wendy Doniger and Brian K. Smith (London:
Penguin Books, 1991), 137-38.
147. Daya Krishna, The Problematic and Conceptual Structure of Classical
Indian Thought About Man, Society, and Polity (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1996), 96.
148. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.4.52: 490.
149. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.4.2-5: 485-86.
150. “To a surrounded enemy you must leave a way of escape....
Show him there is a road to safety, and so create in his mind the idea
that there is an alternative to death.... Wild beasts, when at bay, fight
desperately. How much more is this true of men! If they know there is
no alternative they will fight to the death.” (Sun Tzu, The Art
of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith [London: Oxford University Press, 1963],
109-10.)
“
It is necessary, above everything that has been mentioned, to be careful
not to bring the enemy into utter despair. About this Caesar was careful
when fighting the Germans; he opened a road for them, seeing that since
they could not run away necessity was making them bold.” (Niccolo
Machiavelli, The Art of War, in The Chief Works and Others, vol. 2, ed.
and trans. Allan Gilbert [Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1965],
561-726 see 700.)
John of Plano Carpino, a contemporary of Genghis Khan, described one
of his tactics this way: “If it happens that the enemy fight well,
the Tartars make a way of escape for them; then as soon as they begin
to take flight and are separated from each other they fall upon them
and more are slaughtered in flight than could be killed in battle.” (Gerard
Chaliand, ed., The Art of War in World History: From Antiquity to the
Nuclear Age [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994], 469.)
151. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.6.5: 422.
152. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.57: 442.
153. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.2.4: 462.
154. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.7-8: 491.
155. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.11, 6: 491-92.
156. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.24: 493.
157. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.5.17: 492.
158. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.16.26: 374.
159. Nicolo Machiavelli, the Prince and The Discourses, trans. Luigi
Ricci, E. R. P. Vincent, and Christian E. Detmold (New York: Modern Library,
1950), The Prince, ch. 17.
160. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.4.6: 467.
161. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.4.9: 486.
162. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.5.43-48: 473.
163. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.4.22-28, 9-10: 468-69
164. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 9.6.54-55: 425.
165. Dharmasutras, 159.
166. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.2.24, 19-23: 463-64.
167. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 11.1.14, 9,8: 455.
168. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 11.1.6: 455.
169. The Laws of Manu, 137.
170. The Laws of Manu, 141, 143-44, 151, 225-30; Majumdar, The Military
System in Ancient India, 40-41, 65, 36.
171. Srivastava, The Ancient Indian Army, 101.
172. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.6.48-50: 453.
173. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.2.26, 25-28: 464.
174. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.3.4: 465.
175. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.3.5: 466.
176. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.4.21: 469; Srivastava, The Ancient Indian
Army. 89.
177. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.33: 440.
178. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.36: 440.
179. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.43: 441.
180. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.2.27: 479.
181. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.1.7: 475.
182. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.1.1, 8: 474-75.
183. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 13.1.9: 475.
184. Ram Sharan Sharma, “Superstition and Politics in the Arthashastra
of Kautilya,” Journal of the Bihar Research Society 40, no. 3 (1954):
223-31, see 225-28.
185. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 12.5.38-40: 472.
186. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.6.48-50: 453.
187. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 10.3.1: 438.
188. Kautilya, Arthasastra, 7.15.29: 372.
189. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, 77.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Roger Boesche is Professor of Politics and Arthur G. Coons Professor
of the History of Ideas at Occidental College in Los Angeles. His most
recent book is The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His
Arthashastra.
