[KAUTILYA; R. Shamasastry (trans.)]. Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra. Bangalore: Printed at the Government Press, 1915.
FIRST EDITION of the first English translation. Cloth-bound; hardcover; octavo (22 x 14 x 3 cm); pp. xxxii, 543. English text, translated by R. Shamasastry, with an introduction by J. F. Fleet. Bound in publisher's original cloth. Condition: VERY GOOD. Contents complete. Binding tight and secure. Minor marks to covers. Some light scattered foxing. Scarce.
Notes: One of the most important treatises on political science in the ancient world, along with Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. The Arthashastra (Sanskrit: अर्थशास्त्र, IAST: Arthaśāstra) is an ancient Hindu treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy, written in Sanskrit. Likely to be the work of several authors over centuries, Kautilya, also identified as Vishnugupta and Chanakya, is traditionally credited as the author of the text. This is the extremely rare first major translation of a work that may have been, in part, composed as early as the 2nd century B.C.E. before the previously separate parts were compiled and amended, probably, sometime in the 1st century C.E. by Kautilya. The Sanskrit text this volume was translated from was donated to the newly opened Mysore Oriental Library in 1905, and was the first discovered full text (as opposed to quoted verses in other writing), translated initially in sections in journals by the librarian who identified it. This volume is the first English edition of the full text in book form, published in 1915, as part of the Government Oriental Library Series, Bibliotheka Sanskrita No. 37, Part II. Notably with an introduction by Dr. J. F. Fleet. There is a dedication on front endpaper to what appears to be one Tukoji Rao Holkar III, Maharaja of Indore State in central India between 1903 and 1926, on the occasion of his birthday in 1919; seven years later, in 1926, he would abdicate after a scandal involving sending assassins after a woman who escaped his harem.
