Mark McClish - The History of the Arthaśāstra: Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India

Edited by David Armitage, Richard Bourke, Jennifer Pitts and John Robertson

The books in this series will discuss the emergence of intellectual traditions and of related new disciplines. The procedures, aims and vocabularies that were generated will be set in the context of the alternatives available within the contemporary frameworks of ideas and institutions. Through detailed studies of the evolution of such traditions, and their modification by different audiences, it is hoped that a new picture will form of the development of ideas in their concrete contexts. By this means, artificial distinctions between the history of philosophy, of the various sciences, of society and politics, and of literature may be seen to dissolve.

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The History of the Arthastra

Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India

Mark McClish

Northwestern University, Illinois

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Mark McClish 2019

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ISBN 978-1-108-47690-4 Hardback

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No work is more important to understanding governance and society in ancient India than the Arthastra , and in this volume I present a theory that makes novel claims as to its original form and its transformation over time. In this, I have endeavored to be as faithful as possible to the evidence at hand, although in giving shape to my conclusions I have often been reminded of something that the great Arthastra scholar R. P. Kangle wrote in the preface to his 1965 study of the work: it cannot be expected that the opinions expressed or conclusions reached here will be found entirely acceptable. In fact, I shall be satisfied if they are regarded as worthy of serious consideration (v). While I hope to have set Arthastra studies on a firmer historical footing than before, I am acutely aware of the limitations of the present work and my indebtedness to the scholars whose names fill this book.

This study was born in Patrick Olivelles advanced Sanskrit course at The University of Texas at Austin in the early 2000s. It was there that I was first introduced to the Arthastra , which we read in tandem with Vikhadattas dramatic masterpiece, the Mudrrkasa . They remain two of my favorite Sanskrit works. As I began to read the Arthastra , I became aware of certain textual peculiarities that seemed to me most easily explained by the presence of multiple hands in the composition of the text. I was, through this, exposed to a body of critical work on the compositional history of the Arthastra , and, with the encouragement of Olivelle, I began in fits and starts to attempt to explain the form of the text. This work consumed my years as a graduate student and resulted in my 2009 dissertation. The project was, unfortunately, set aside early in my career, when my focus shifted to the requirements of teaching-intensive appointments. I am grateful to have been able to return to it in the past few years and bring it to a degree of completion.

As I explored the composition of the Arthastra , I came to see that many passages expressing orthodox Brhmaical sentiments appeared to be secondary additions to the text. Hours reading in and around the Arthastra persuaded me, as I argue in this book, that nearly all of these passages were added during the early phase of an explosion in Brhmaical intellectual and artistic culture that transformed Indian politics and society in the first half of the first millennium CE. This Brhmaical revival has been the subject of numerous studies, most recently in an important series of books by Johannes Bronkhorst. The present volume seeks to portray the Arthastra as an early important witness to the Brhmaical revival, and I hope that it will provide a foundation for further work on what is to my mind the most important historical and religious transformation in the early centuries of the Common Era.