Arthasastra

Arthashastra (IAST: Arthaśāstra) adalah risalah India Kuno tentang administrasi negara, kebijakan ekonomi dan strategi militer yang konon ditulis oleh Kautilya dan Viṣhṇugupta, yang secara tradisional diidentifikasi sebagai Cāṇakya (c. 350–283 BC), seorang sarjana di Takshashila dan kemudian menjadi perdana menteri Kemaharajaan Maurya.

Identifikasi Kautilya atau Vishnugupta dengan perdana menteri Maurya, Chānakya, akan menentukan masa penulisan Arthaśāstra sekitar abad ke-4 SM. Meski demikian, kesamaan dengan berbagai smrti dan kitab referensi lainnya akan menimbulkan anakronisme sehingga kemungkinan Arthaśāstra ditulis dari abad ke-2 hingga ke-4 M. K.C. Ojha mengemukakan pandangan bahwa penyamaan Vishnugupta dengan Kautilya disebabkan karena kesalahan dalam mengenali editor dan penulisnya sehingga ia berpendapat bahwa sesungguhnya Vishnugupta adalah redaktur karya yang murni ditulis oleh Kautilya. Thomas Burrow berpendapat bahwa Chānakya and Kautilya sesungguhnya adalah dua orang yang berbeda.

Catatan kaki

1. Mabbett, I. W. (1964). "The Date of the Arthaśāstra". Journal of the American Oriental Society. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 84, No. 2. 84 (2): 162–169. doi:10.2307/597102. ISSN 0003-0279.  Parameter |month= yang tidak diketahui akan diabaikan (bantuan)
   Trautmann, Thomas R. (1971). Kauṭilya and the Arthaśāstra: A Statistical Investigation of the Authorship and Evolution of the Text. Leiden: E.J. Brill. hlm. 10. while in his character as author of an arthaśāstra he is generally referred to by his gotra name, Kauṭilya. 
2. Mabbett 1964
   Trautmann 1971:5 "the very last verse of the work...is the unique instance of the personal name Viṣṇugupta rather than the gotra name Kauṭilya in the Arthaśāstra.
3. Mabbett 1964 "References to the work in other Sanskrit literature attribute it variously to Viṣṇugupta, Cāṇakya and Kauṭilya. The same individual is meant in each case. The Pańcatantra explicitly identifies Chanakya with Viṣṇugupta."
4. Mabbett 1964
5. Trautmann 1971:"The Ages of the Arthaśāstra", 167–187.
   Mabbett 1964
6. Trautmann 1971:67 'T. Burrow ("Chānakya and Kautalya", Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 48–49 1968, p. 17 ff.) has now shown that Chānakya is also a gotra name, which in conjunction with other evidence makes it clear that we are dealing with two distinct persons, the minister Cānakya of legend and Kautilya the compiler of the Arthaśāstra. Furthermore, this throws the balance of evidence in favor of the view that the second name was originally spelt Kautalya and that after the compiler of the Arth. came to be identified with the Mauryan minister it was altered to Kautilya (as it appears in Āryaśūra, Viśākhadatta and Bāna) for the sake of the pun. We may then assume that the later spelling subsequently replaced the earlier in the gotra lists and elsewhere.'