Kautilya’s Arthashastra: Contemporary Issues and Comparison

In order to make a work relevant, scholarly attempts to study the text such as Kautilya’s Arthashastra, and then critically apply it to explain, compare and understand contemporary issues is necessary. This monograph intends to fulfil this aim in a small way.
The chapters have examples of application of the text for contemporary issues such as military operations; comparison of texts of Arthashastra with the Panchatantra; Indian Indigenous Traditions for Research; and Contemporary Use of Traditional Historical Knowledge in China and India.

About the Author

Pradeep Kumar Gautam joined IDSA in 2005 as a research fellow. He has authored over half a dozen books/monographs, a number of edited chapters, occasional papers and series of articles/commentaries. He has also contributed to IDSA working groups and task force reports. The topics of these outputs include non traditional security subjects like environmental security, the military and the environment, climate change, and water; military issues; and Tibet.

Since 2012 he is researching on Kautilya’s Arthashastra. ‘One Hundred Years of Kautilya’s Arthasastra’ was his first publication in 2013. He was the convener of the Indian Council of Social Science Research sponsored national and international seminars on Kautilya at IDSA in 2013 and 2014. He is the co-editor of three volume publication – Indigenous Historical Knowledge: Kautilya and His Vocabulary, Volumes I to III (forthcoming) and is a lead member of a bilateral on Kautilya. His current research is on dharma and artha.

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