ABSTRACT
Kautilya's Arthashastra: A Pendulum Theory of History
Roger Boesche
In European history and in the Judeo-Christian tradition, thinkers have usually accepted either a cyclical or a linear view of history. Whereas Plato and Cicero embraced cyclical views of history, Hebrew prophets and Christian theologians as well as proponents of progress such as Condorcet and revolutionaries such as Marx all believed in various kinds of linear theories of history. Kautilya implicitly embraced a theory of history very different from anything in the European tradition.
Kautilya offered a "science of politics" good for all times and places, a science that would enable a wise king to conquer the world and attain for himself and for his subjects the three goods in life - material gain, spiritual good, and pleasures. By wielding this science and after conquering the world, Kautilya's king could bestow upon the world social justice and the morally correct ordering of the world according to Hindu castes and subcastes.
However, nothing lasts. Kautilya offers a view of history and time in which time just rolls on, flows like a river, turns like a wheel, destroys at one instant and creates at the next. What does this mean for the political order or the state? Every kingdom swings like a pendulum passing through three phases - decline, stability, and advancement. How does a statesman take action, given such a view of history? In this arena of time, the king should use Kautilya's science of politics to maximize the time in which his kingdom is in a state of advancement and to minimize periods of decline.
Roger Boesche, Professor of Politics at Occidental College, Los Angeles, California 90041.