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THE TYRANT STATE circle, that is to say, of scholarly specialists in Europe, the United States, and India. The caustic and sententious style, literary facility, and intellectual genius displayed do high credit to the master of political devices who composed this amazing treatise. Much of the material was quarried from older sources, thc work being founded on a rich tradition of earlier political teachings, which it superseded, but which is still reflected through its quotations and aphorisms; and yet the study as a whole conveys the impression of being the production of a single, greatly superior inind. We know little-or perhaps nothing
-of the author. The rise of Candragupta, the founder of the Maurya dynasty, to paramount kingship over northern India in the third century B.C., and the important role of his dynasty during the following centuries, have contributed a practically impenetrable glow of legend to the fame of the fabled chancellor, Kautilya, whose art is supposed to have brought the whole historical period into being."
The Tyrant State
When we review the theories and devices of the Hindu master statesman, we behold the ancient style of despotism in all its power and weakness, and begin to understand something of the
Cf. supra, p. 87, and Appendix B. For a history of this period, cf. Sir Gcorge Dunbar, A History of India, from the carliest times to the present day, 2nd cdition, London, 1989, pp. 35-57. "The Maurya Empire."
Kautilya is one of the very few historical individuals who have been
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