August 19, 2012

Chanakya, Machiavelli of India

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Chanakya

Chanakya
Chānakya (Sanskrit: चाणक्य Cāṇakya) (c. 350–283 BCE) was an adviser to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupt (c. 340-293 BCE), and was the chief architect of his rise to power. Kautilya and Vishnugupta, the names by which the ancient Indian political treatise called the Arthaśāstra identifies its author, are traditionally identified with Chanakya.[1] Chanakya has been considered as the pioneer of the field of economics and political science.[2][3][4][5] In the Western world, he has been referred to as The Indian Machiavelli, although Chanakya's works predate Machiavelli's by about 1,800 years.[6] Chanakya was a teacher in Takṣaśila, an ancient centre of learning, and was responsible for the creation of Mauryan empire, the first of its kind on the Indian subcontinent. His works were lost near the end of the Gupta dynasty and not rediscovered until 1915.[3]

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