The Arthaśāstra is the foundational text of Indic political thought and ancient India's most important treatise on statecraft and governance. It is traditionally believed that politics in ancient India was ruled by religion; that kings strove to fulfil their sacred duty; and that sovereignty was circumscribed by the sacred law of dharma. Mark McClish's systematic and thorough evaluation of the Arthaśāstra's early history shows that these ideas only came to prominence in the statecraft tradition late in the classical period. With a thorough chronological exploration, he demonstrates that the text originally espoused a political philosophy characterized by empiricism and pragmatism, ignoring the mandate of dharma altogether. The political theology of dharma was incorporated when the text was redacted in the late classical period, which obscured the existence of an independent political tradition in ancient India altogether and reinforced the erroneous notion that ancient India was ruled by religion, not politics.
目次
The History of the Arthaśāstra i - i Ideas in Context - Series ii - ii The History of the Arthaśāstra - Title iii - iii Copyright iv - iv Dedication v - vi Contents vii - ix Figures and Tables x - x Preface and Acknowledgments xi - xv Note on the Text xvi - xvii Abbreviations xviii - xix Chapter 1 - Introduction 1 - 27 Chapter 2 - Arthaśāstra Historiography 28 - 51 Chapter 3 - The Resegmentation of the Arthaśāstra 52 - 82 Chapter 4 - Citation and Attribution 83 - 110 Chapter 5 - The Deep Structure of the Text 111 - 139 Chapter 6 - The History of the Arthaśāstra 140 - 154 Chapter 7 - The Politics of the Daṇḍanīti 155 - 173 Chapter 8 - Varṇadharma in the Arthaśāstra 174 - 207 Chapter 9 - Statecraft, Law, and Religion in Ancient India 208 - 223 Aendix I - Other Theories of Composition 224 - 225 Aendix II - Chapter Colophons 226 - 227 Aendix III - End Verses at Variance with Preceding Prose 228 - 230 Aendix IV - Possible Integration between Prose and End Verses 231 - 232 Aendix V - Proposed Interpolations at the End of Chapters 233 - 234 Aendix VI - Possible Instances of Unattributed Citation 235 - 237 Aendix VII - Proposed Interpolations Depending on Citations 238 - 238 Aendix VIII - Other Proposed Interpolations 239 - 239 Aendix IX - Manu’s Seventh Chapter and the Daṇḍanīti 240 - 242 Aendix X - Brāhmaṇical Privileges 243 - 244 Bibliography 245 - 255 Index Locorum 256 - 266 Index 267 - 274 Ideas in Context - Series 275 - 288
