Arthashastra — An Introduction

Arthashastra means the science (sastra) of wealth/earth/polity (artha). ‘Artha’

however is bit wider and an all-embracing term with variety of meanings.
In ‘Arthashastra’ itself it is being used in various contexts, points out L N
Rangarajan in his translation of Kautilya —Arthashastra. It is used in the sense of
material well-being, in livelihood, economically productive activity trade etc. This
is bit similar with ‘wealth’ which is defined in ‘Wealth of Nations’. In rather
simple way, ‘arthashastra’ can be defined as ‘science and art of politics and
diplomacy’. This treatise is divided into sixteen books dealing with virtually every
topic concerned with the running of a state – taxation, law, diplomacy, military
strategy, economics, bureaucracy etc. The book is a masterpiece which covers a
wide range of topics like statecraft, politics, strategy, selection and training of
employees, leadership skills, legal systems, accounting systems, taxation, fiscal
policies, civil rules, internal and foreign trade etc. Arthashastra advocates rational
ethic to the conduct of the affairs of the state. The emphasis is on codification of
law and uniformity of law throughout the empire. In this essay we shall try to
explore Kautilya’s views on legal systems, justice and king’s role in maintaining
law and order as discussed in Arthashastra by Kautilya himself.
Kautilya on Law and Justice
Kautilya maintained that it is essential duty of government to maintain order. He
defines ‘order’ broadly to include both social as well as order in the sense of
preventing and punishing criminal activity. Arthashastra thus contains both the
civil law and criminal law. Kautilya ascribed a lot of importance to ‘dharma’.
According to him, ‘the ultimate source of all law is dharma’. He appealed in the
name of ‘dharma’ to the sense of honour and duty and to human dignity, to moral
responsibility and to enlightened patriotism. It’s quite intelligible that the judge in
the arthashastra was called ‘dharmashta’ or upholder of dharma. He maintained
that so long every ‘Arya’ follows his ‘svadharma’ having due regard to his ‘varna’
and ‘ashrama’ and the king follows his ‘rajdharma’, social order will be
maintained.

Kautilya’s emphasis on duties of King in maintaining law and order in the society
is so much that he writes in Arthashastra, “because the King is the guardian of
right conduct of this world with four ‘varnas’ and four ‘ashramas’ he [alone] can
enact and promulgate laws [to uphold them] when all traditional codes of conduct
perish [through disuse or disobedience].”
The King was looked upon an embodiment of virtue, a protector of dharma. He too
was governed by his dharma as any other citizen was. Thus if any actions of the
King went against the prevailing notion of dharma, associations and/or the
individual citizens were free to question him. He recalls every time that ‘dharma’
alone is guiding star for every king, or rather every individual and that following
‘dharma’ one shall have a life of dignity while social order prevailing in society.
He remarks, “A King who administers justice in accordance with ‘dharma’,
evidence, customs, and written law will be able to conquer whole world”. Kautilya
recognized the importance of rational law or King’s law and its priority to
‘dharma’, ‘vyayhara’ and ‘charitra’. He maintained that King’s law was to be in
accordance with the injunctions of the three Vedas wherein the four ‘varnas’ and
‘ashramas’ are defined. King was not the sole interpreter of dharma. In fact there
was no specific institution vested with the authority of interpreting dharma. Every
individual was deemed competent to interpret it. This was an important factor in
ensuring the non-religious character of the Vedic state.
Kautilya did not view law to be an expression of the free will of the people. Thus
sovereignty – the authority to make laws, did not vest with citizens. Laws were
derived from four sources – dharma (scared law), vyavhara (evidence), charita
(history and custom), and rajasasana (edicts of the King). Kautilya prescribe that
any matter of dispute shall be judged according to four bases of justice. These in
order of increasing importance are:

– ‘Dharma’, which is based on truth

– ‘Evidence’, which is based on witnesses

– ‘Custom’, i.e. tradition accepted by the people

– ‘Royal Edicts’, i.e. law as promulgated.

In case of conflict amongst the various laws, dharma was supreme. The ordering of
the other laws was case specific. Rajasasana ordered the relationship between the
three major social groupings — the citizen, the association, and the state. The
constitutional rules at the state level were specified in the rajasasana but the
constitutional rules at the level of the association were to be decided by the
members of the association. The collective choice and the operational level rules of
the association were also decided by the members of the association though the
state did promulgate laws to safeguard the individual member from the tyranny of
the majority in the association. Arthashastra outlines a system of civil, criminal,
and mercantile law (now known as business laws). For example the following were
codified: a procedure for interrogation, torture, and trial, the rights of the accused,
what constitutes permissible evidence, a procedure for autopsy in case of death in
suspicious circumstances, what constitutes defamation and procedure for claiming
damages, valid and invalid contracts.

We see in Arthashastra that law was not viewed just as code of prohibition, nor was
it limited to corrective justice of law courts. Its range was wider than morality itself
and institutions were creation of law while traditions and customs rested on its
sanctions. All ideas of society were moulded by it and law was blended with
religion, with morality and with public opinion and by its subtle operations
subjected the society to its will. The role of law in the society was to bring a just
order in society and the tremendous task was to be shouldered by the King along
with his subordinates. As rightly pointed out by Kautilya in his famous verse —

“In the happiness of his subjects lies the King’s happiness;

In their welfare his welfare.
He shall not consider as good only that which pleases him but,
Treat as beneficial to him whatever pleases his subjects”

Role and Status of Woman: Reading the Arthashastra, the question that naturally
comes to mind is: Did women of Kautilya’s times enjoy more rights than they do
today? There can be no clear answer to this question because in some respects, like
remarriage or right to property, women had a better position than what they came
to have in the subsequent periods of Indian history. However, in terms of
subservience and dependence, the principles and traditions were no different. In
this summary, the verses relating to women have been collated under the following
headings: women as begetters of sons, their right to property, standards of sexual
morality as it affected them, their role in the labour force, their legal status in
contracts and suits and, lastly, dependency and subservience.

Women as Begetters of Sons: The role of women is succinctly stated by Kautilya

as: ‘The aim of taking a wife is to beget sons’ {3.2.42}. From this principle of
perpetuating the family line through sons, others follow. ‘The frustration of a
woman’s fertile period is a violation of a sacred duty’ {3.4.36}. ‘A wife shall not
conceal her fertile period and a husband shall not fail in his duty to try to get a son
during his wife’s fertile period’ {3.2.43,44}. If a wife was barren for eight years or
if she had borne only daughters over a twelve-year period, the husband could take
a second wife without paying compensation to the first or returning her dowry
{3.2.38-40}. When a man had more than one wife, the earliest surviving wife or
the one who had borne many sons was given priority {3.2.43-44}.

This preoccupation with bearing sons also gave women some rights. A girl, whose
father was indifferent about her marriage for three years after her reaching puberty,
could find herself a husband, even one from another varna {4.12.10}. Likewise, a
father lost his rights if he prevented his daughter’s husband from approaching her
for seven periods {4.12,8,9}. Among the reasons given for a wife’s right to refuse
to have intercourse with her husband is that she had already borne him sons
{3.2.45}. 

The principle of perpetuation of the husband’s family affected the rights of a

widow to remarry; she could retain her husband’s property only if she married a
man from the husband’s own family {3.2.20-30}. Similar restrictions applied to the
remarriage of a wife whose husband had gone on a very long journey. The
Kautilyan order of preference for niyoga (levirate) is: a brother of the husband, any
sapinda (common ancestor within three generations) male, and lastly, the husband’s
kula (the extended family) {3.4.37-41}. The custom of a wife bearing a kshetraja
son, referred to earlier, is a further indication of the importance attached to having
sons {3.6.24}.

Lastly, though nuns of both Brahmanical and non-Brahmanical orders are often
mentioned, it was a crime to induce a woman to renounce her role as a wife
{2.1.29}.

Women’s Right to Property: The principle is: ‘The purpose of giving women the
right to own property is to afford protection in case of a calamity’ {3.2.34}. This,
however, was a right restricted, on the whole, to maintenance. This is made clear in
the order of inheritance specified in the text: sons, daughters, the father of the
deceased, brothers and nephews; the widow is nowhere mentioned as an inheritor
{3.5.10-12}. A widow did not inherit all the property of her husband; if there were
no heirs, the king took the property leaving only the amounts needed for her
maintenance {3.5.28}.
In general, a woman had control over her dowry and jewellery {3.2.14,15}. She
retained this control after the death of her husband, so long as she did not remarry
{3.2.19}. If she remarried without the consent of her father-in-law, her new
husband was obliged to return all her property to the other family {3.2.23}. A
remarrying widow was also obliged to leave her property, at the time of
remarriage, to the sons by the first marriage {3.2.28.29}. In short, property passed
down the male line, except when there were only daughters.'

There are references to rich widows; one example is the case of an unjustly treated
prince collecting money by plundering rich widows after gaining their confidence
{1.18.9}. Secret agents posing as rich widows were used to sow dissension among
the chiefs of an oligarchy {11.1.42} or to draw the enemy from the safety of his
sort {13.2.42}.

Sexual Morality: The Arthashastra covers every aspect of sexual morality. Great
emphasis is laid on virginity before marriage; there are also references to adultery,
rape and abortion.

Not being a virgin at the time of marriage was an offence punishable by a fine of
54 panas; if the bride pretended to be a virgin (by smearing some other blood on
the sheets during consummation), the fine was increased to 200 panas. Any man
falsely accusing a girl of not being a virgin also had to pay a similar fine and, in
addition, lost the right to marry her {4.12.15-19}. As a consequence of the
emphasis on virginity for the girl, defloration, including defloration by a woman
and auto-defloration, also became punishable offences {4.12.20-22}. Special
provisions existed for the defloration of the daughters of slaves and courtesans
{4.12.26,27}. It is interesting to note that the Arthashastra defines the age of
puberty for girls as twelve, while for boys it is sixteen {3.3.1}.
Some types of sexual relations were prohibited. Incest, punishable by the
mutilation of sexual organs and then death for the man, and only death for the
woman, concerned a parental role: either the man as a father, as in incest with a
daughter or daughter-in-law or the woman in a role similar to that of a mother, as
in the cases of the teacher’s wife, a sister of the father or the mother, and the wife
of the maternal uncles {4.13.30-31}. Other prohibited relations attracting
punishments were: for men, with the queen, an unprotected Brahmin woman and a
woman ascetic; for the woman, slaves and bonded males; and, for both, an Arya
with a svapaka {4.13.32-35}.

Intercourse with a woman, other than through the vagina, was a punishable offence
{4.13.40}. The only references to female homosexuality are defloration or rape;
male homosexuality, on the other hand, was a punishable offence {4.13.40}. The
implication is that male sexual activity was meant only for procreation.

Both husbands and wives were entitled to expect their spouses to fulfil their
conjugal duties, the punishment for the husband being double that for the wife
{3.3.2}. This may have been due to the fact that prostitution, a state-controlled
revenue-enhancing activity, provided an alternative for men. In fact, a husband
who falsely accused his wife of refusing to sleep with him was also punished
{3.3.14}.

Adultery was treated as a serious crime, the punishment for the wife being the
amputation of her nose and an ear {4.12.33}. However, if the adultery was
committed when the husband was away on a long journey, the wife was kept under
custody by the husband’s kinsmen till the husband’s return, when he had the option
of forgiving both the wife and her lover {4.12.30-32}.

Different punishments are prescribed for the crime of rape, depending on the
victim: 12 panas for raping a prostitute, 24 panas for each offender in a gang rape
of a prostitute and 100 panas for raping a woman living by herself, the amputation
of the middle and index figures for raping a girl who had attained puberty, the
amputation of a hand if the girl had not attained puberty and death if the girl died
as a result of the rape {3.20.16, 4.13.38, 4.12.1-7}. Among crimes against women,
special punishments are prescribed for city guards who misbehave with women;
these range from Lowest Standard Penalty if the woman was a slave, to death if the
woman was a respectable person {2.36.41}.

Pregnancy carried with it some rights, mainly in the interests of protecting the
child. Causing abortion was a serious crime, the punishment varying from the
Lowest to the Highest Standard Penalty, depending on the means used {4.11.6}.
Procuring the abortion of a female slave also carried a punishment of the Lowest
Standard Penalty {3.20.17}. Women were not to be tortured during pregnancy or
for a month after childbirth {4.8.17}. For a woman convicted of murder, the
sentence of death by drowning was carried out a month after childbirth {4.11.18}.
Pregnant women could use the ferries free of charge {2.28.18}.

Women’s Employment: Though the extent to which women were employed in the
agricultural sector not clear from the text, it is likely that they also worked in the
fields and pastures along with the men. A sector of employment reserved for
women, particularly those who had no other means of livelihood, was spinning.
The list given under the Chief Textile Commissioner includes: widows, crippled
women, unmarried girls, women living independently, women working off fines,
mothers of prostitutes, old women, servants of the King and temple dancers whose
services to a temple had ceased {2.23.2}.

Special mention is made of women who did not stir out of their houses, for reasons
of modesty (or inability?) The list includes: widows, handicapped women,
unmarried girls and those whose husbands were away on a journey. Work was sent
out to such women by the Chief Textile Commissioner, through his own maid
servants. They could also come to the yarn shed, early in the morning, when there
was little traffic about {2.23.11.12}. When they came, the official was obliged to
do only what was necessary to hand over the raw material, receive the yarn and pay
the wages; he was neither to look at a woman’s face nor to engage in any
conversation unrelated to work {2.23.14}.

Kautilya’s concern for protecting the modesty of women was balanced by his

concern for ensuring control over the decentralized spinning sector, with the work
being done at home unsupervised by an official. The prescribed punishment for
cheating (taking the wages but not doing the work, misappropriating the raw
material) was drastic—cutting off the thumb and forefinger {2.23.15}.

Women and children were also employed in collecting and preparating the
ingredients for making alcoholic liquor {2.25.38}. They worked as attendants of
the king and other nobles, their main occupations being shampooing, preparing the
bath, making garlands and perfumery and carrying the regalia of office
{1.21.13,2.27.4}.

That women were employed by the state for prostitution is obvious from the earlier
discussion. There were other types of women entertainers, like actresses. The
wives of actors and other entertainers were also to be used, under the cover of
profession of their husbands, to detect, delude and murder the wicked {2.27.30}.
The use of women to delude or entrap enemies, both internal and external, was
quite extensive. Reference was made earlier to the wandering nun belonging to a
category of roving spies {1.12.4-5}. ‘A woman of bad character’ is mentioned as
one to be used in trapping a treacherous high official by making her pretend to be
the queen {5.1.29}. Women were thus used for a variety of nefarious purposes
ranging from tempting a prince unjustly treated to appear before his father, to
sowing dissension among the chiefs of an oligarchy. The whole range of such
activities of secret agents is given in Part IX of this translation.

The one area where women were protected by law was when they were bonded
labour or slaves. A female bonded labourer was not to be beaten, treated violently,
made to give a bath to a naked man or deprived of her virginity. If the maltreated
woman was a nurse, a cook, a maid or an agricultural tenant, she was freed. A
pledged nurse was not to be raped; a master should neither himself rape, nor let
some one else rape, a virgin girl under his control. A woman labourer to whom a
child of the master was born was entitled to leave the household {3.13.9-12}. A
pregnant female slave was not to be sold or mortgaged without making adequate
provision for her welfare during her pregnancy. Her pregnancy was not to be
terminated by abortion. When a slave gave birth to a child of her master, both she
and her child were no longer considered to be slaves {3.13.20,23,24}.

Status in Contracts and Suits: A contract made by a woman dependant on her

husband or son was not valid; in this, the woman’s status was equated with that of
other dependant people, such as slaves and bonded labour {3.1.12}. Though
contracts had normally to be entered into in public, a contract for inheritance,
marriage or deposits was valid, even if made inside a house, provided one of the
parties was a woman who did not normally leave her house {3.1.7}.

For the purposes of the law of evidence, a woman was classed with those who
could be called upon as witnesses only with respect to cases involving their own
group; this did not apply to cases of theft, assault, adultery or secret transactions
{3.11.29}. Women were also included in the class of persons whose problems were
to be looked into by judges suo moto {3.20.22}.

Dependence and Subservience: Many aspects of the protection accorded to

women were based on the inclusion of women in the list of people who needed the
protection of the state because they were helpless and easily exploited. It is a
debatable point whether women, as a segment of society, would have needed this
protection, if society and the legal system had not placed them from the beginning
in an inferior position.

The underlying principle in the Arthashastra is that a woman was always

dependent on, under the control of and subservient to, her father, her husband or
her son. In fact, in the chapter on title to property, women are included in the list of
property, along with deposits and pledges {3.16.32}. A wife could not, without the
permission of her husband, drink, indulge in unseemly sports or go on pleasure
trips. She could not go to see performances, with other men or even with other
women, either by day or at night. She could not leave the house when her husband
was asleep or drunk; she could not refuse to open the door to him {3.3.20-24}. On
the other hand, a wife had certain rights. The physical punishment which a husband
could inflict on his wife was limited to three slaps {3.3.8}. She could run away
from home if ill-treated {3.4.1}. She could not be prevented from visiting her own
family on special occasions like death, illness or childbirth {3.4.13}. Some women,
who customarily enjoyed freedom of movement, could travel with a man {3.4.22}.
Widows or wives whose husbands had gone on long journeys could remarry,
subject to specified conditions. Divorce was possible only in four of the eight
forms of marriage {3.3.19}.

The overall picture is thus one of women being placed in a subservient role but
given adequate protection to ensure that this did not lead to total exploitation. How
well the safeguards operated in practice can only be a matter for conjecture. It is
possible that gradual deterioration, over centuries, in the legal protection
guaranteed to women in the Arthashastra, led to their being given a lower status in
later codifications like the Manusmriti. Vatavyadhi considers lust worse than
addiction to drink. ‘For, many are the dangers arising from the foolishness of
women, as has been explained in the section on the women of the palace. 1 Drink,
on the other hand, gives pleasure to the senses, helps to show affection to others
and is a way of honouring followers [by drinking with them]. It helps to relieve the
fatigue caused by work.’ {8.3.55-57}

Kautilya disagrees. In having relations with women of the house, [there are] two
advantages—begetting children and self-protection. If one lusts after outside
women, or those with whom relationship is forbidden, then one loses these
advantages. It is the same with drink. There are also [other adverse] effects of
drink: loss of one’s senses, acting like a madman, loss of health to the extent of
looking like a corpse even when alive, shamelessness in exposing oneself,
separation from good people, association with harmful ones, [excessive]
indulgence in music and singing, throwing away one’s wealth as well as loss of
learning, intellect, strength and good friends. {8.3.58-61}