The Chanakyan cerebration
The tale of Chanakya, political advisor of Chandragupta Maurya.
History as a subject was never my cup of tea, to be frank. Seemingly irrelevant dates and figures about various kings and their places of conquest never did strike a chord with me. Infact, the whole procedure of digesting them down and writing an exam on them seemed tedious, not providing enough kick to my grey cells. But the days kept passing by and it was finally eighth grade and that’s when we had chapters relating to the Indian freedom struggle, Maratha empire and the Mughal dynasty to name a few. And that’s also when Mauryan empire came to picture. The wow-moment occurred. At its largest extent, the empire stretched to the north along the northern boundaries of Himalayas, to the east till Assam and to the west till Afghanistan.
I was in hunt of a role model, an idealist, a person who served the Vedic ideal quintessentially. And that’s when Chanakya alias Vishnugupta alias Kautilya completely floored me with his complete vaishnavite qualities of philanthropy, renunciation from material attachments and practise of righteousness which later prompted him to take a vow in kiboshing the Alexander the Great’s army from establishing their foothold on the eastern side of the Indian subcontinent for his concern pertaining to the eudaimonia of the Indian subcontinent after being trained in the Vedic gurukula of Taxila. On examining the different facets of his personality and its subtleties, I came to know that He was a man to be probed even more thoroughly. His every act conveyed a message to the masses, and so to me he seemed to be a perfect role-model for the contemporary civilization which requires a Vedic messiah whose very life served as an example for the maxim- ‘Simple Living, High Thinking’.
Born in Pataliputra (modern Bihar) and later moving on to Taxila in Gandhar province, Son of a rishi named Chanak, Chanakya started memorizing the ancient scriptures of Vedas at a very early age. Some of the most toughest portions of the Vedas were easily by gulped down by him at puerility. He later went on to become one of the greatest master strategists gifted with extensive knowledge in the Sanatana Dharma, diplomatic finesse in politics, chemistry and even medicine becoming the greatest kingmaker in history. What awed me most was the fact that He was never wrong, although seemingly wrong since He always used to take fifteen to twenty moves ahead of his opponent. For me, He seemed to be the Vedic version of the supercomputer Deep Blue, although an anachronistic equivalent. After becoming the king-maker of the Mauryan empire, heading the council of ministers, unifying the numerous kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent and thrashing the Greek invasion, he then went on to write three books named Nitishastra — a treatise on the practise of Dharma and the do’s and don’ts of the Indian way of life, Arthasastra — on political expertise, often considered to be the magnum opus of Indian politics and Chanakya Niti. His views on monetary and fiscal policies, international policies were top-notch. He envisioned a self-sufficient economy that did not depend on foreign trade, that efficiently managed land resources with major concern for agriculture.
Even when it came to governance, Chanakya exemplified the Vedic polity to a larger extent. The government consisted of a council of ministers who were handpicked from the most eminent Gurukulas of that time by the kingmaker being . Chanakya heading the council of ministers, would then choose the person for whom the title of the king would seem the most befitting. He would keep four tests evaluating them based on wealth, virtue, fear, pleasure and also in the candidate’s wisdom and in his ability to renunciate for the betterment of the society.
Chanakya-Niti (13.8) -
If the king is virtuous, then the subjects are also virtuous. If the king is sinful, then the subjects also become sinful. If he is mediocre, then the subjects are mediocre. The subjects follow the example of the king. In short, as is the king so are the subjects.”
He often reiterated the fact that in the happiness of the kingdom lies the happiness of the ruler and it should also be his only happiness. Under him, the system was so complete that even If the king required to perform any sort of action, It would require the permission of the council spearheaded by him. When there was even the slightest hint of power corrupting the king, the Council had the right to impeach him If on arriving at a common conclusion headed by the kingmaker.
Chanakya was exceedingly clever, in fact to define his intelligence was quantitatively unimaginable. He used to have his own people in the opposite camps and would spy the other kings unbeknownst. Although he was keen on ethics to be followed, He used to make his own rules and break them as his ultimate aim was the betterment of the society, for which he was ready to sacrifice anything, even the code of conduct. His farsighted approaches appeared to be prophesies time and again, which helped in squashing the Greek invasion.
There are many of his tales that makes us muse about his wit. Once, Chandragupta’s palace was given for refurbishment and was about to be inaugurated. When the king was about to step in, He stopped him midway and went in first to check the palace thoroughly and when he noticed a crack on the floor and some ants coming out of it with grains of rice, he at once came out of the palace and instructed the guards to seal and burn the palace completely. The bewildered king understood neither head nor tail of what was going on. Chanakya then took him to the other side where he saw charred bodies of the enemies who were actually hiding in the basement of the palace. Chanakya was able to detect it by the movement of the ants and save the day.
During those time, poisoning of the kings was a routine affair, so he used to add small amounts of poison to the king’s food, so that the king became resistant towards it. Once, when a minister intentionally administered a high dose of poison in the royal buffet to kill the king, and when Chandragupta was about to eat, He stopped him at once and told him –“ A king should not eat or drink unless someone else had a part of it in his presence.” When the minister took it forcibly, He at once fell down dead. There were many such stories were he saved the king’s life by his adroitness. One of the excerpts from Chanakyaniti said -“ It is just as difficult to detect an official’s dishonesty as to discover how much water is drunk by the swimming fish”. He was sceptical about the minutest flaws made by the ministers. Perfection seemed to be his second nature, and was always dissapointed when others flawed.
After the consolidation of the empire and the Greek evasion, when peace and order was re-established in the Indian subcontinent, Chanakya decided to retire. This decision sent shock waves to the whole of the Mauryan empire. No one would have opted to retire from the post which he was assigned to, Especially when the whole of the Indian subcontinent is under your feet. Although attaining the zenith in statesmanship, He never got intoxicated by it. He lived and died by his principles. This is what sets apart a man among men, the characteristic of not getting corrupted by fame even when the ghastly tentacles of power tries to seize you down.
After retiring from the senate, he lived a semi-ascetic life in forest teaching his disciples in Shravana Belagola. He preached his vision of a society where the people are not running behind material pleasures. He believed that control over the sense organs is essential for success in any endeavor and that spiritual development is essential for the internal strength and character of the individual and material pleasures and achievements are always secondary to the spiritual development of the society and country at large.
The amalgamation of wisdom and power for the benefit of the society at large inherited by him was a rare spectacle to be witnessed as a part of Indian history. Chanakya was indeed a visionary, a role model of sorts. But nowadays, the word role model is in itself a double-entendre. Chain smokers, child molesters and hippies and all kinds of ‘not-to-be’s who entertain the crowd are becoming role models. The popularity of the cult is given more preference than the ideal and ethics of the individual. This seems to be quite maniacal since my generation is standing for and fantasizing on all that our ancestors never stood for. Martin Luther King had once quoted — “If you don’t have an ideal worth dying for, there is nothing worth living for”.
A role model for an ideal based life is missing and Chanakya fills the void although writers such as Ashwin Sanghi and B.K Chaturvedi have provided semifictional narratives of Chanakya’s life for the sake of adding extra spice to the story, the writers have seesawed between fact and fiction, adding romance and personal revenge to the narrative, thus bollywoodising it.
For the generations to come, let the song of Chanakya be sung. For in each street, Let the coaxing nectarian melody be listened to, For when every Indian would be proud of the greatest strategist-cum-politician born of Indian soil. Let the day come!
