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The Arthashastra () is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy, written in Sanskrit. Kautilya is credited to be the author of the Hindu text, and he is also known as Vishnugupta and Chanakya.〔Mabbett 1964 "References to the work in other Sanskrit literature attribute it variously to , and . The same individual is meant in each case. The ''Pańcatantra'' explicitly identifies Chanakya with ."〕〔 〕 Kautilya was a scholar at Takshashila, the teacher and guardian of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan Empire. Composed, expanded and redacted between 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE, the Arthashastra was influential until the 12th century, when it disappeared. It was rediscovered in 1904 by R. Shamasastry, who published it in 1909. The first English translation was published in 1915. The title "Arthashastra" is often translated to "the science of politics",〔 but the book ''Arthashastra'' has a broader scope. It includes books on the nature of government, law, civil and criminal court systems, ethics, economics, markets and trade, the methods for screening ministers, diplomacy, theories on war, nature of peace, and the duties and obligations of a king.〔Sen, R.K. and Basu, R.L. 2006. ''Economics in Arthashastra''. New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications.〕〔Thomas Trautmann (2012), Arthashastra: The Science of Wealth, Penguin, ISBN 978-0670085279, pages xxv-27〕 The text includes ancient economic and cultural details on agriculture, mineralogy, mining and metals, animal husbandry, medicine, forests and wildlife. The ''Arthashastra'' explores issues of social welfare, the collective ethics that hold a society together, advising the king that in times and in areas devastated by famine, epidemic and such acts of nature, or by war, he should initiate public projects such as building irrigation projects, building forts around major strategic holdings and towns, and exempt taxes on those affected. The text was influential on other Hindu texts that followed, such as the sections on king, governance and legal procedures included in Manusmriti. ==History of the manuscript== The text was considered lost by colonial era scholars, until a manuscript was discovered in 1904. A copy of the Arthashastra in Sanskrit, written on palm leaves, was presented by a Tamil Brahmin from Tanjore to Benjamin Lewis Rice director of the newly inaugurated Mysore Oriental Library. This text was identified by R Shamasastry as the Arthashastra.〔 Incomplete sections of a north Indian version of Arthashastra were discovered in Gujarat in 1959, and found to vary from the 1904 discovery. A critical edition was published in 1960, and numerous translations and interpretations have been published since then. The text is an ancient treatise written in 1st millennium BCE Sanskrit, coded, dense and can be interpreted in many ways, with English and Sanskrit being grammatically and syntactically different languages. It has been called, by Patrick Olivelle – whose translation was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press- as the "most difficult translation project I have ever undertaken", parts of the text are still opaque after a century of modern scholarship, and the translation of Kautilya's masterpiece intrigue and political text remains unsatisfactory. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Arthashastra」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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