In 325 BCE, as Alexander retreated from India, an ambitious Indian scholar watched the proceedings with great interest. This scholar, Chanakya, had set his eyes on the throne of the hated king of the Nandas. How convenient that Alexander's invasion had shaken up the political landscape.
By 323 BCE, Chanakya had secured enough funds to hire a Greek mercenary army. Conquest was on the horizon. But Chanakya did not intend the throne for himself.
Instead, he planned to depose Dhanananda and place his own puppet claimant on the throne, Chandragottam Morya. In the end, Chanakya succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. It was his hand that puppeteered the growth of the Mauryan Empire, the largest native power in Indian history.
And in Chanakya's famous treatise, Arthashastra, he codified a pragmatic system of statecraft, a Machiavellian system that would be adopted throughout India and Southeast Asia. This is his story. Chanakya was born to a scholarly Jain family sometime in the 4th century BCE.
From there, accounts differ. The Jain account notes that he was from Dramala, an area that today encompasses the southern states of India. However, recent linguistic evidence shows that Chanakya was born to a Jain family sometime in the 4th century BCE. has led some historians to believe that Chanukya originated from the western coast. In most accounts, Chanukya is described as having broken teeth, and this is tied to his destiny as the power behind the throne.
Broken-toothed Chanukya was soon married to Chanukya, off to a traditional Brahmin lady. Surprise, surprise, his in-laws suddenly started fussing, for Chanakya was educated, yes, but he was poor, so Chanakya headed north seeking opportunity, to Patliputra, capital of the prosperous Nanda Empire. An opportunity there was.
Chanakya found work as a courtly advisor and administrator for the king, Dhanananda. However, at some point, Chanakya was profoundly insulted by the king or lost his job. Chanakya swore revenge, revenge. He would topple the dynasty and help establish a new one on the ashes. But first, he would need a claimant with which he could challenge Dhanananda.
How convenient that in the forest near the capital, Chandrakya found a descendant of the original Nanda dynasty, Chandragapta. But to understand the value of Chandragapta to Chandrakya, we have to understand Dhanananda's story. See, Dhanananda was descended from a lowborn barber who was the favorite play thing of a previous queen.
Sensing an opportunity, the barber, who had ingratiated himself with certain court officials, instigated a coup. Afterwards, he took the queen's children in as their guardian and one by one had them killed too. Dhanananda was a descendant of the barber and this queen. The record makes it clear that his low birth and the violent, unjustified nature of his ancestor's coup made him an easy target for hatred, worsened by high taxes and an oppressive administration.
In fact, Porras told Alexander that Dhanananda was so widely despised that he could have captured the Nanda Empire were he to continue deeper into India. This is where Chandragopta comes in. From the historical record, it appears that Chandragopta could have been the son of a lesser wife of an older Nanda king. In other words, he had a connection to the Nanda dynasty before the coup. In order to escape the violence of the coup, Chandragopta and his mother went to the forest to live in obscurity.
According to the legends, Chanaka ventured into the forest and found Chandragupta as a child. He supposedly knew that Chandragupta was a rightful heir, for the boy was playing king with his friends. Chanaka became Chandragupta's guardian. Together they left for Takshila. Takshila was a frontier city in the subcontinent and a vibrant center of learning and trade.
And after Alexander's retreat from India, the city was teeming with disaffected Greeks and Persians. It was Takshila where Chanaka would change his fortunes and build the foundation of his imperial legacy. legacy.
While in Takshila, Chanakya is believed to have taught at the prestigious Takshila University and personally tutored Chandragopita, developing him into a polished, kingly figure. But Chanakya did not dither. In Takshila, he actively sought allies to help him take down Dhanananda and establish a new empire.
According to various records, Chanakya came into a great deal of wealth very suddenly. Most of the records attribute this to some sort of fantastical magic power. In reality however, it's likely that Chanakya obtained war loans from merchant guilds.
Obtaining war loans was common in India. Money in hand, Chanakya first secured the allegiance of Greek mercenaries in Thakshila, and then he struck a deal with the Himalayan king, Parvataka. To sweeten the deal, he offered Parvataka half the empire once they succeeded in toppling it.
Now backed by a large army of mercenaries and partnered kings, Chanakya and his allies conquered a a large chunk of the northwest and look to the empire of the Nandas next. Beyond Takshila, conquest would not be easy. According to Hindu and Jain sources, the war campaign against the Nandas was bitterly fought because the Nandas had a powerful and well-trained army.
Chanaka and his allies launched a direct attack on Pakliputra. This was a bold move, but Chanaka's gamble did not pay off. The attack failed and the allied forces were forced to retreat. Battered and bruised, they soon reached realized that they should have first secured a more favorable position on the periphery of the empire, slowly deconstructing the Nandas piece by piece.
With a new strategy in place, the allied forces invaded the border provinces of the Nandas. As the allied forces took these provinces, they strengthened their position, filled their garrisons and induced minor lords into joining their cause. Finally, the allied forces sieged Patliputra once more.
This time, they were successful. As per usual, accounts differ. Some say that Chanaka and his allies killed Dhanananda, while others say that they speared the old king but forced him into exile.
Chandragupta now sat on the throne in Putliputra, having toppled the Nanda dynasty and having founded a new imperial dynasty, the Mauryas. The situation was not yet ideal, however. He would have to share this conquest with the Himalayan king Parvataka, his most important ally. Parvataka suddenly fell sick with poison. poison, and died.
Many accounts attribute this poisoning to Chanakya, who is believed to have blamed some of his own allies as part of a larger scheme. With Chanakya advising him as prime minister, Chandragopta established an expansive and prosperous empire. In two short generations, it would grow into the largest native empire in Indian history, fueled by the instability of North India at the time.
In the wake of Alexander the Great's invasion, he had left much of northwest India under the control of semi-independent Greek rulers. Greek satraps. These satraps faced the constant threat of rebellion.
After all, many local lords seethed at the fact that their position had been usurped by distant foreigners. Chandragopta and Chanaka exploited this vulnerability. They made extensive use of guerrilla tactics, working with hill tribes and other groups to cause instability in the Greek satraps. Soon enough, the expanding Mauryan Empire bordered the eastern flank of the largest post-Alexander Greek kingdom, that of Seleucus Nicator. War was inevitable.
In 305 BCE, the Seleucids attempted an invasion of the subcontinent. The Maureans were drawn into conflict and soundly defeated the invading Greeks. Tired of the border tensions, the two powers agreed to a peace treaty. Saliasus would receive 500 war elephants, while Chandragupta would be given the remaining Greek territories in India. To strengthen the peace, Saliasus also gave away his daughter, Helena, to Chandragupta in marriage.
Now that there are attention could be turned elsewhere, the Mauryans looked to the east and south. Until Chandragupta's death in 297 BCE, the Mauryans expanded across North India from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal, and even consolidated territories past the Vindhya mountain range and into the Deccan region. Eventually, the majority of South India was conquered, with the sole exception of Tamil country. From the historical record, it's not clear whether it was Chandragupta himself or his son Bindusara who was responsible for the destruction of the Bindusara. responsible for this southern conquest.
Either way, by the time his grandson Ashoka had taken the throne, most of the Indian subcontinent had come under Mauryan imperial authority. Chanakya implemented far-reaching policies that made the empire prosperous and powerful. First, he developed a strong central administration in stark contrast to the splintered kingdoms of the past. Parallel government structures were developed to help the state administer the unique needs of rural and urban areas subcontinent. separately, and the military was important enough that an entire administrative body was created to supervise it.
Commerce was encouraged. It's clear that Chanakya believed in the power of economic competition. For example, the state monopolized weapons manufacturing centers but allowed private mining operators to bid and compete for the right to supply these weapon centers. Tax breaks spurred economic activity, and the state limited taxes on overburdened citizens.
Interestingly, Chanakya wrote that limiting taxes was done out of fear of revolt, not generosity or ideological commitment. The Mauryan Empire undertook massive infrastructure projects, such as a road system that connected major urban centers throughout the empire. These projects not only enabled faster troop movements, thus enabling the administration of such a large, centralized empire, but also allowed for easier commerce and internal migration.
With Chanaka as prime minister, the Mauryans also implemented a number of protections that would today be considered quite progressive. The state made provisions for certain groups who could could not adequately provide for themselves. Pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled, and those living in areas struck by environmental catastrophe.
In keeping with his progressive nature, Chanakya also believed that people had a right to divorce and remarriage, the state should not overly prohibit this practice, not even for widowed spouses. In 285 BCE, once Chanakya grew too old for his position as prime minister, he retired and began to write down his thoughts and learnings. He wrote three works, Arthashastra, Chanaka Niti, and the Chanaka Sutra.
The Niti and Sutra are general works full of proverbs and other glimpses of earthly wisdom, and were popular in their own right. In fact, references to the Niti were made more than 2,000 years after Chanaka's death. But for now, let's focus on the Arthashastra.
What is the Arthashastra exactly? On the surface, the Arthashastra is a comprehensive treatise on economics and statecraft. It's written in the style of an advice book for kings, especially those who have the ambition to become world conquerors.
The subject matter of the Arthashastra is varied. It is split into 15 books and over 180 different governance-related topics, from taxation to espionage and resource politics. Everything about the Arthashastra screams pragmatism, even the straightforward writing style, which Chanaka takes a moment to acknowledge.
He almost almost seems to take pride in the fact that he's not a talented writer. Below the surface, the Arthashastra is a guide to securing and maintaining absolute political power. This is seen as both necessary and ethical in the world that Chanakya inhabits, an India akin to medieval Europe, rife with conflict.
Chanakya saw the attainment of power as the only path to peace and prosperity, and in fact believed that Artha was worth pursuing over immaterial objectives like dharma, kama, moksha. Chanakya explains that there cannot be a pursuit of dharma without artha. This perspective stands in stark contrast to the religious philosophers of his day.
With a stable government, the people are protected from exploitation and are free to pursue dharma, kama, and moksha. For in the absence of the magistrate, the strong will swallow the weak. But under his protection, the weak resist the strong.
Unsurprisingly, modern scholarship is divided. because it's possible to read Chanakya as both radically amoral and as an ethical realist. But modern scholars are not the only ones struggling with this. There's seemingly never been a historical consensus.
In the first half of the 7th century CE, the Sanskrit writer Banabhatta wrote, is there anything that is righteous for those whom the science of Chanakya, merciless in its precepts, rich in cruelty, is an authority? What is clear is that Chanakya was not an outright moralist, nor was he particularly religious. Academic analysis has revealed that the existing Arthashastra manuscripts are actually compiled works. The portions attributable to Chanakya are almost entirely lacking a religious or moral quality.
The religious portions were added later, many centuries after Chanakya's death, by conservative Brahmins who likely found his perspectives to be problematic. After all, the Arthashastra has a cynical view of religion. It advocates for rulers to manipulate religion for political purposes.
It also criticizes astrology and fortune telling as deeply fraudulent and discourages kings from making decisions by re-enacting them. reading the stars. The treaties also goes into great lengths on how to conduct espionage. Chanakya recommends the use of state spies for a variety of purposes, both at home and abroad. Gathering information, tricking enemies, generating rumors, assassinations, and more.
Ever the amoral pragmatist, Chanakya insists that a king keep track of his own people, and notes that many members of society should be on the state's payroll for this purpose. For example, he directs a king to the palace. to pay servants and courtesans to spy on nobles in the hopes of discovering sensitive information that could be used for blackmail. He also recommends using the affections of beautiful courtesans to sow discord among one's opponents.
Counter-espionage was a consideration too, and Chanakya was rather paranoid. He moved Chandragopta's bedroom every few days to confuse potential assassins. He is also believed to have secretly put small amounts of poison in Chandragopta's food to help build poison community. As Chandragopta was not privy to this strategy, he unknowingly shared his food with his pregnant wife, who died.
Rushing against the clock, Chanaka ordered that her womb be cut open and the baby was saved. This baby, heir to the throne, was born with a drop of poison having touched his forehead, and so he was named Bindusara. meaning the strength of the drop. The Arthashastra's passages on espionage and war speak to Chanakya's belief that the ends justify the means.
This belief is nuanced, however. For example, Chanakya allows kings to use any means necessary to win a war assassination, trickery, propaganda, and more. However, he recommends fighting in an honorable manner when one has greater strength than the enemy.
When equal or weaker to the enemy, he encourages trickery. When the war is won, Chanakya requests that kings treat the conquered humanely. But perhaps the aspect of the Arthashastra that is most often cited in recent times is that of foreign policy.
Today, Chanaka's views of competitive states as a sort of mandala, and his unemotional explanation as to what states make natural enemies and what states make natural allies, are taught in policy schools throughout the world. Chanakya died in 283 BCE, having guided both Chandragripta Maurya and Bindusara. His legacy is truly impressive.
For thousands of years, his vision of governance influenced kings and kingmakers in both South Asia and Southeast Asia. Asia. Today, his teachings have even found purchase in business and policy schools in the Western world. Chanakya was a man ahead of his time, greater and more innovative than Machiavelli, to whom he is often compared.
And now you know.