The Arthashastra - Ultimate Indian Epic on statecraft

2400 years ago, there lived a being with an intellect of a thousand men , who believed failure is not even an option. The name of the 'legend' is Kautilya or Chanakya

'Arthashastra' - As the name indicates, is the science of accumulating wealth. Kautilya strongly believed that wealth is the primary objective of statecraft. Accumulation of wealth without deviation from dharma is the crux of arthashastra. It is said that Kautilya refrained Chandragupta Maurya from conquering beyond India because he considered it as deviation from dharma.

All the strategies are derived by listing down all possible combinations of scenarios - let it be war based or others. Despite being the owner of a very sharp mind, he himself stands on the shoulder of giants. He learns the works of 6-8 prominent teachers / schools in each field, assesses each of them in granular detail and derives his own conclusion after a series of debates with his fellow ministers. That makes him and his strategies flawless.

It covers economic policies in detail along with agriculture, mineralogy, mining and metals, animal husbandry, medicine, forests, wildlife and broadens further to construction of irrigation water ways, building towns, forts around strategic points and tax exemption in case of a disaster and disaster management.

Except varna system, society was reasonably much more advanced than even today - Government provisioned fresh meat for all except veterinary doctors (reason not specifically mentioned), Widows can remarry, prostitution was legal where rights of both were equally preserved. Strict laws were envisaged to avoid any sort of exploitation of women who indulge in such acts and such women were given the right to decide whether to sleep with her client or not! At the same time, she cannot cheat her client after obtaining money from him. Public drinking, gambling and entertainment were also allowed with strict laws to prevent anyone from causing any trouble after drinking or spending too much money in gambling. In a nutshell, it was ensured that none of the above entertainments gets 'out of hand'.

Another interesting aspect is gender equality. Women / men can remarry if the spouse didn't take good care of them . Hurting your spouse physically or verbally is a crime. Except during pregnancy, women enjoyed no specific privileges and was treated as equal with men. Can't imagine how we stooped from here to all sort of stupid evil systems like  Sati (widow forced to burn in the funeral pyre of husband) and all!

Glorious war strategies are the cream of Arthashastra. There is only one goal - To Win. Nothing less nothing more. This is the golden rule of all strategies. It doesn't matter whether you're weak, strong or neutral ; based on your current position, you'll be offered a set of strategies to win the war. Kautilya reiterates that war can only bring loss and hence should be fought only when it is inevitable.

Detailed war formations, clear guidelines on leveraging troops based on the purpose of conquest, terrain, mode of battle (land, water or forest), along with protection of strongest forces (best war men are protected in the middle to minimise loss) on top of dedicated R&D wing for developing new weapons makes them as lethal as possible.

Strategies even talk about engaging in war with as much as 6-8 kings at a time. Think about its relevance even today where India might have to engage in a two and a half front war with Pakistan, China and counter insurgency. At the same time, dharma was strongly upheld to the extent that no civilian should be hurt in a war because Kautilya was very clear that there is no nation without people. Thus people of enemy kingdom could easily merge as and when it is conquered. Even enemy kings were spared from any torture because Kautilya knew torture can only help to sow vengeance in them. His objective was to merge every 'river' (enemy kingdom) to the grand ocean of Mauryan empire such that the merged river easily becomes part of the one great ocean!

Can you believe that, despite having these much immaculate war strategies, we as a nation remained slaves in the hands of foreign rulers for a thousand years and we suffer ripple effects of this slavery even to this day!