I discovered that mankind has the same essential nature and the same problems of life.
—Yu-lan (2008, p. 658).
Introduction
Kongzi or Kongfuzi or Zhongni (Confucius, 551-479) of Zhou China (1046-256), hereafter referred occasionally by his popular moniker “Master,” and Kauṭilya (the politician), also known as Viṣṇugupta (the astronomer) or Cāṇakya (the moralist) (350-275), of late Nanda (345-321) and early Maurya (322-185) India, hereafter occasionally referred to as ācārya (preceptor), were near contemporaries who flourished during, what Karl Jaspers (1960, pp. 99-102) has called, the “axial age” (800-200).
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These six centuries witnessed, in the Eurasian oikoumene, the coming, in addition to Kongzi and Kauṭilya, of Laozi (d. 531), Mozi (d. 391), Zhuangzi (d. 287) in China; the Upaniṣads (composed ca. 800-500) and the Buddha (ca. 563-483) in India; Zarathustra (ca. 650-ca. 500) in Iran; Elijah, Isaiah (fl. eighth century), and Jeremiah (b. 655) in Palestine; and Homer (fl. 750), Parmenides (b. 501), Heraclitus (d. 475), Plato (428-348), Thucydides (d. 395), and Archimides (287-212) in Greece (Jaspers, 1960, pp. 99-102). However, these two personalities share a lot of common assumptions about human nature, civil society, government and administration, interstate policies, military power, and the education of the prince despite their historical and cultural differences.
Kongzi: Brief Vita
Kongzi was born September 28, 551 in a shi family (Loewe & Shaughnessy, 1999), a quasi-military class (somewhat comparable with the samurai of medieval Japan or the kṣatriya of Hindu India), of the district of Zou near present day Qufu, in southeast Shandong, China. His father Shuliang-he led the Lu armies in 563 and 556 as a senior commandant of the garrison of the landlords of Lu, the de facto rulers of the region, which notionally belonged to the Zhou kings. Kongzi’s great grandfather, a native of Song, had relocated to Lu in the gengxu year, the year of the dog. The Han historian Sima Qian (145-90?), in his Shiji Xinanyizhuan (Records of the Historian: Foreigners in the Southwest, 94), observes that Kongzi resembled a “stray dog” in his sad moments (Confucius (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), 2013; see also en.wikipedia.org/wiki/confucius). Orphaned at 3, following his father’s death, Kongzi was raised by his mother Yan Zhengzai (his father’s unwed concubine from his family domain Zou, a non-Zhou culture region), and had a painful and penurious experience having been forced to undertake petty jobs during his youth.
Kongzi was born in China’s troubled times. The once powerful and the most significant unifier of ancient China, the magnificent (Western) Zhou dynasty (1045-771), had been confronting the rise of warlords and barbarian tribes, such as the Quanrong, with the pretense of a wang [sovereign king] since the ruler of a small state called Chu began the practice in 880 (Schwartz, 1985). Especially, the so-called Spring and Autumn period (722-476) witnessed the rapid erosion of the Zhou central authority in the power struggle among all feudal states. The Western Zhou capital Zongzhou, in Haojing, near modern Xian, in Shaanxi Province was nearly destroyed and it moved further east to Loyang in the Henan Province, in the Yangtze Valley, thus heralding the prominence of the Eastern Zhou rule (722-221). Ironically and remarkably, this volatile and violent period, nicknamed as the era of Great Transformation, witnessed an efflorescence of the so-called Hundred Schools of Thought by China’s great philosophers of whom Kongzi was perhaps one of the most famous. Kongzi studied the Six Arts or Liu Yi (archery, calligraphy, computation, music, chariot driving, ritual) at schools for commoners. Although he saw himself as an intellectual [ru], he made a disarming admission that he taught nothing new but only the best of the past tradition, and his teachings did by the same token bring the old past to enrich and vivify the troubled times of other cultures millennia later (AC VII: 1). Moreover, a distinguished American sinologist has famously discerned significant novelty in Kong’s teachings. According to Frederick Mote, Kongzi introduced three innovations: creation of the private teacher, introduction of a curriculum of education for future public servants, and finally, accepting students of all social backgrounds, thereby replacing privileges with equal opportunities and hereditary aristocracy with competitive meritocracy (Mote, 1989). Nevertheless, it ought to be recognized that the Master was steeped in what he considered antiquity.
Kongzi’s life is, to cite the Encyclopedia Britannica article, “plain and real” (Britannica.com/biography/Confucius), in that, his life highlights nothing magical or anagogical. He remained downright indifferent to the spiritual [guishen] world (AC XI: 12). As we learn from the Analects, “the Master did not speak of strange occurrences, feats of strength, political disruptions and spirits” (AC VII: 21). Yet he was quite ambivalent about the divine or Heaven (Tian; AC V: 13, VII: 21), the Zhou deity replacing Shangdi, the deity of the Shang dynasty (1600-1046). Although a superhuman absolute power in the universe, Tian is aligned with moral goodness, dependent on human agents to actualize its will, even though its associations with them are uncertain and unpredictable. (The Zhous had sought to legitimize their rule as Tianming, a mandate from Tian.) Kongzi’s conversation with his acquaintance Zilu that one could not think of serving the spirits while remaining unable to serve man hinted indirectly and unmistakably at the superior status of the spirits (AC XI: 12). In fact, as will be noted later, he even boasted that the moral force in him was a gift of Heaven’s grace. Then, with a view to dispelling his disciple Zilu’s suspicion that his master might have committed some indiscretion while paying a visit to Nanzi, the consort of Duke Ling of Wei, Kongzi swore, “That which I deny, may Tian detest it! may Tian detest it!” (AC VI: 28). The Master’s ambivalence in this regard chimes very well with his preference for the Zhong [central, middle, just, right] Way—a unique concept, his “great invention” (Ch’i-yun, 1980, p. 36). As a scholar puts it, basically, “The Way of Heaven signifies morality, and to follow the Way of Heaven is to lead a virtuous life” (Yao, 2000, p. 148; see also 141-154 for a succinct discussion on tian).
Kongzi the Ru
Kongzi was a self-conscious intellectual, that is, a ru. “When I was fifteen I set my heart on learning,” he declared toward the end of his life. He then went on as follows:
At thirty I took my stand. At forty I was without confusion. At fifty I knew the command of Tian. At sixty I heard it with a compliant ear. At seventy I follow the desires of my heart and do not overstep the bounds. (AC II: 4)
But he never liked the idea of being venerated as a sage. When a t’ai tsai [high ranking official] asked Kongzi’s disciple Zigong whether the Master was a sage because of his multiple skills, he was told that “It is actually Tian which allows him to be a great Sage,” and “he is skilled in many things besides.” When Kongzi heard it, he quipped that the inquirer was unaware that when he was young, he “was of humble station and so became skilled in many rude things” and then he asked rhetorically, “Is the junzi [clerisy or “profound” man] skilled in many things? No, not many” (AC IX: 6).
Kongzi valued proper education as crucial to proper conduct both in civil society and in government. As teacher, he focused on two interrelated areas: (a) social teachings dealing with proper interpersonal behavior and (b) political teachings dealing with the art of governance as well as the proper relationship between the ruler and the ruled (
confucius-1.com/teachings
). The golden rule of an ideal social transaction is shu [consideration], that is, avoiding treating others in ways that they themselves would not wish to be treated: “Do not do to others what you would not wish done to you” (AC XII: 2; XV:24). He also believed firmly in the efficacy of practicing li [ritual] that will lead to the practice of ren [benevolence]. His admonition in this regard was clear and somber: “If it is not li, don’t look at it; if it is not li, don’t listen to it; if it is not li, don’t say it; if it is not li, don’t do it” (AC XII: 1).
Kongzi: The Analects
Much of our information on Kongzi’s life and logia is derived mostly from a compilation of aphoristic sayings and teachings of the Master known as Lun-yü [Edited or Selected Writings], that is, analects, translated as The Analects of Confucius (Confucius, 1861) by the Scottish sinologist James Legge (1815-1897). Admittedly, there are scores of translated versions of this work and arguably some of them excellent, but I have decided to use Robert Eno’s The Analects of Confucius (AC) primarily, and Din-cheuk Lau’s The Analects occasionally, for their clarity, coverage, and critical annotations. The Analects contains 20 books each featuring chapters compiled and composed by the Master’s associates and disciples, who are introduced in Book I. Book II is a discourse on government. Books III and IV outline his ideology, especially dao [the Way], de [virtue], ren, li, and junzi [clerisy or “profound” men]. Books V and VI contain comments about disciples and others. Book VII provides a description of Kongzi. Books VIII and XX deal with miscellaneous matters. Book IX has a variant version of Book VII. Book X constructs Kongzi’s image as a figure of ritualized perfection. Book XI gathers comments on Kongzi’s disciples, while Books XII and XIII deal with governance. Books XIV and XVIII are concerned with the themes of reclusion. Book XV contains a collection of conversations. Book XVI gathers together conversations on disparate issues without an identifiable theme. Book XVII deals with the political issues of Kongzi’s times. Book XIX contains the sayings of the disciples after Kongzi’s death (Eno, 2015, pp. iv-v).
The Ru’s Counsels to Rulers and Statesmen
Kongzi insisted that rulers possess virtue and practice true justice and compassion. Only a just ruler would continue to exercise the right to rule. “Governance [zheng] is setting things upright [zheng],” the Master advised (AC XII: 17).
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He further counseled against procrastination by encouraging rulers to take prompt and effective action (AC XII: 14). However, he ruled against any threat or use of violence. He aspired for a quiet, stable habitat for humanity, where everyone is aware of his or her station in life and act out their métier. More important, he provided a pithy formula “rectification of names” [zhengming] about governance in his conversation with the Duke Jing of Qi: “Let the ruler be ruler, minister minister, father father, son son” (AC XII: 11). He explained further to his disciple Zilu:
When names are not correct, what is said will not sound reasonable, affairs will not culminate in success; when affairs do not culminate in success, rites and music will not flourish; when li and music do not flourish, punishments will not fit the crimes. (AC XIII:3. I have used the translation in Lau, 1979, p. 118 for better clarity of meaning).
However, he insisted that a successful ruler must first endeavor to earn the subjects’ trust (AC XII: 7). And he could succeed in his enterprise only if he “be attentive to affairs and trustworthy; regulate expenditures and treat persons as valuable; employ the people according to proper season” (AC I: 5). To sum up, Kongzi’s teaching is directed toward the maintenance of three interlocking kinds of order: (a) aesthetic, (b) moral, and (c) social. The instrument of effecting and emulating all this is ritual propriety [li] (AC XII: 1). For him, the paramount example of harmonious social order seems to be filial piety [xiao], of which reverence [jing] is the key quality (AC I: 11, II: 7, IV: 18). “This order,” as Roger Ames and David Hall aver, “is both intrinsically moral and profoundly harmonious” (Hall & Ames, 1987, cited in iep.utm.edu/confucius). Indeed,
In Chinese civilization, maintaining order through harmonious relations was so important that the role of the individual was defined in terms of five relationships [wu-lun]: between prince and minister, father and son, husband and wife, elder and younger brothers, and between friends. (Pang, 1988, p. 7)
As to his teachings for statesmen and other public servants, Kongzi invoked de, considered a quality of the successful ruler, and urged everyone to follow dao. He was adamant in his attitude to dao, the Way. As he advised, “Set your heart on the dao, base yourself in de, rely on ren, journey in the arts” (AC VII: 6). No doubt the ruler conducts his business at the pleasure of the Zhou deity Tian, but Kongzi regarded it as resolutely allied with Heaven’s gift, de. As he declared, “Tian had engendered virtue in me” (AC VII: 23). Admittedly, though de seems to be as magically efficacious as Tian, it is stringently moral. “When one rules by means of virtue,” said the Master, “it is like the North Star—it dwells in its place and the other stars pay reverence to it” (AC II: 1). In other words, de is the quintessential quality for a ruler tout court. Jeff Richey (2003) observes that Kongzi’s
vision of order unites aesthetic concern for harmony and symmetry (li) with moral force (de) in pursuit of social goals: a well-ordered family, a well-ordered state, and a well-ordered world. Such an aesthetic, moral, and social program begins at home, with the cultivation of the individual.
Kongzi and Junzi
Precisely, it is this cultivation (“repeated practice” in Kongzi’s terms) of the individual or the lack of it that causes differences among men who, otherwise, are “By nature close to one another, through practice far distant” (AC XVII: 2) and this contradicts the report that the Master never expressed his personal views on human nature (AC V: 13). He in fact talked about the nature [xing] and character of the junzi [gentleman or the xian ren, the worthy man], sometimes even contrasting him with the “small” man—the xiao ren—as will be seen in the list of quotations appended hereunder:
The junzi comprehends according to right, the small man comprehends according to profit. (AC IV: 16)
The junzi is free and easy, the small man always careworn. (AC VII: 37)
The junzi acts in harmony with others but does not seek to be like them; the small man seeks to be like others and does not act in harmony. (AC XIII: 23)
The junzi is at ease without being arrogant; the small man is arrogant without being at ease. (AC XIII: 26)
The junzi holds three things in awe. He holds the decree of Tian in awe, he holds great men in awe, and he holds the words of the Sage in awe. The small man does not know the decree of Tian, and so does not hold it in awe, he is disrespectful towards great me, and he disgraces the words of the Sage. (AC XVI: 8)
Provide people with adequate food, provide them with adequate weapons, induce them to have faith in their ruler. (AC XII: 7)
The Central Mean in conduct is where virtue reaches its pinnacle. Few are those who can sustain it for long. (AC VI: 29)
There are three points to the dao of a junzi that I have been unable to reach: to be ren and so not beset with care, to be wise, and so not confused, to be valorous, and so not fearful. (AC XIV:28)
Clearly then, it is the junzi, the perfect man who is also xian the worthy man of ren, de, and dao that, more than the sage and the grandee, emerges as the exemplar of a perfect man. Responding to Zilu’s query “How must one be to deserve being called gentleman?” the Master said, “Supportive, encouraging, congenial—such a man may be called gentleman. Supporting and encouraging with his friends, congenial with his brothers” (AC XIII: 28). He was even more clear in his ideas of a man of ren (that is, a junzi). Responding to Zizhang’s query about ren, he said,
“He who can enact five things in the world is ren” and continued: “Reverence, tolerance, trustworthiness, quickness, and generosity. He is reverent, he receives no insults; he is tolerant, he gains the multitudes; he is trustworthy hence others trust him with responsibilities; he is quick, he has accomplishments; he is generous hence he is capable of being placed in charge of others.” (AC XVII: 6)
Kongzi certainly aspired for the standing and stature of a junzi even though, in his innocent conceit, he quipped, “As for terms such as ‘sage’ or ‘ren,’ how could I dare accept them? Rather, ‘tireless in pursuing it, unflagging in teaching others’—that may be said of me” (AC VII: 34). He also averred, in another context, that “As a man, when agitated in thought he forgets to eat, joyfully forgetting his cares, not realizing that that old age is near at hand” (AC VII: 19). Kongzi never claimed sagehood for any of his ancestors but, according to Zuo Zhuan [Zuo commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals], Meng Xizi, scion of a prominent noble family of Lu, had mentioned that Kongzi descended from the successors of a sage nobleman named Kong Fu Qia (d. 710; Lau, 1979).
For all his bonhomie and brilliance, Kongzi did never carry any major portfolio with a long tenure in his career with the government of Lu. Among his periodical stints, most were of modest or slightly higher rank: supervisor of granaries, cattle, and sheep at Qi (ca. 517), but he returned to Lu during the reign of Duke Ding (r. 509-495), was made a steward of Chong Du and in 502-501 a magistrate [sikuo] of Lu. The well-meaning but somewhat idealistic visionary, despite his innate interest in the odyssey of human life on this planet, wandered around his home state of Lu and even travelled out of state in 497, visiting Wei, Zheng, and Cai, in search of a worthy pupil. He, however, became the chief minister [xiang] of Lu in 496, but quit his service for some unknown reasons and resumed his peregrination (Jingpan, 1990). He returned finally to Lu in 484—a near septuagenarian—devoting the rest of his life to teaching (Lau, 1979), and perhaps, continuing his practice of self-cultivation. “Do not be concerned that you have no position, be concerned that you have what it takes to merit a position” Kongzi counseled. “Do not be concerned no one recognizes you, seek that which is worthy of recognition” (AC IV.14). Nevertheless, he perhaps died a heart-broken ru on November 21, 479, employed as a low-ranking counsellor at Lu and suffering intense grief over the deaths of his two favorite disciples: the untimely death of the precocious genius Yanhui in 482 and of Zilu in a fracas in 480.
He once lamented, “I have yet to see a man who loved virtue as much as sex” (AC IX: 18). He was equally despondent that he was personally unfit to be a gentleman. As he confessed, “as far as exemplifying the junzi in my personal conduct, I have not yet grasped it” (AC VII: 33). His enterprise failed to move his audience, and as even a lowly keeper of the pass at the Yi River in the state of Wei shrewdly told Kongzi’s followers curious to fathom the factors for their Master’s failed overture in that state: “The world has been without the dao. Tian means to enjoy your Master as a wooden bell” (AC III: 24).
Kauṭilya: Brief Vita
Kongzi’s younger counterpart by two centuries in a region known as Bharat or India situated a little over two thousand miles apart, a Brāhmaṇ scholar/teacher [ācārya] named Cāṇakya, later to be known by his notoriously misunderstood but widely popular moniker Kauṭilya, the devious and devilish politician, was born in an unspecified location, probably Pātaliputra, the metropolitan city of Magadha under the Nanda Empire, in ca. 350.
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According to the Cāṇakyakathā as well as Viśākhadatta’s play Mudrārākṣasa (c. fifth century-seventh century CE) with the commentaries of Dhunḍirāja (ca. 18th century), Cāṇakya helped a Nanda prince named Candragupta Maurya to oust the incumbent holder of the crown, Dhana Nanda (see Bandyopadhyaya, 1982; see also Kale, 1976),
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and seize the imperial throne. Candragupta founded the Maurya Empire (322-185). However, toward the end of his career, Cāṇakya fell out with Candragupta’s son and successor Bindusāra (r. 297-273), renounced his personal properties to which he had reportedly been always indifferent, and retired into private life. Although his attitude to material possessions cannot be ascertained, despite some historians’ claim that he was “a saint in private life” (Mehta & Thakkar, 1980, p. 85), it is possible to imagine that his retirement from royal service meant an initiation into the life of a forest-dwelling ascetic [vānaprastha]. Kauṭilya himself suggests that if the minister “has fallen from favour, he should repair to a forest or engage in a long sacrificial session” (AS V.vi.46).
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The Arthaśāstra was composed probably in retirement.
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The Arthaśāstra
The Arthaśāstra means the science (śāstra) of artha (wealth or a populated territory). However, it generally stands for “the science of politics” or “the science of government.” The arthaśāstra representing a school of political thought came to be developed as an independent discipline from the sixth century. This century was a turbulent period for northern India. The western part of the north, comprising the regions of Sind and western Punjab, had been subjugated by the Persians by 516 BCE. In the east, Buddhism gained ground in the regions of Magadha-Videha. The Buddhist teachings were apolitical and even anti-political, but they facilitated the development of absolutism by neutralizing the influence of powerful brāhmaṇs who, as the recognized natural leaders of the people, had hitherto opposed monarchical centralization and kept the ambitious kings at bay. Most significantly, Buddhism, much like traditional Hinduism, emphasized the transience of this world and the lasting values of mokṣa [liberation]. As the religion of the brāhmaṇs had centered attention on sacrifice, so the Buddhists harped on the miseries of life: duḥkha [pain and suffering] and saṁvega [anxiety and alienation].
Contrary to the excessively spiritual Buddhism, the arthaśāstra writers posited a fourfold goal of human life—the caturvarga or four categories: dharma [morality], artha [wealth], kāma [desires], and mokṣa [salvation]—artha being the foremost (Bandyopadhyaya, 1982, Book I, Chapter 3). Kauṭilya offers a powerful defense for the centrality of artha in human life: “Material well-being alone is supreme, for spiritual good and sensual pleasures depend upon material well-being” (AS I.vii.6-7). Hence, the arthaśāstras discussed agriculture, commerce, animal husbandry, and other related occupations. But the most important subject was the art of governance and the ways of attaining sovereign authority. In short, the arthaśāstra counseled the prince on how to ensure material welfare [lābha] and good government [pālana] (AS I.i.1).
Yet Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra is not totally indifferent to moral considerations. Even when the Kauṭilyan king is enjoined to pursue pleasures, at the same time, he is advised to enjoy only those pleasures that are “not against dharma and artha” (AS I.vii.3). Kauṭilya clearly announces the raison d’etre of his science: “It brings into being and preserves spiritual good, material well-being, and enjoyment of pleasures; and destroys spiritual evil, material loss and hatred (ill-will)” (AS XV.i.72). There is little justification in Winternitz’s observation that “the Arthashāstra teaches the methods by which material success (artha) is to be obtained, whether these methods agree with religion and morality (dharma) or not” (Winternitz, 1923, p. 265).
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The Arthaśāstra comprises 15 books [adhikaraṇa], 150 chapters [adhyāya], 180 sections [prakaraṇa], and about 6,000 verses [śloka—32 syllables make one śloka]. The first book deals with the upbringing and education of a king; the second with civil administration, including the formation of village units, construction of forts, and with the revenue system; the third book through the fifth deal with civil law, legal proceedings, punishments, and duties of courtiers and ministers; the sixth book discusses the seven elements [saptāṅgas] of politics: king, ministers, land, fort, treasury, army, and ally, and analyzes interstate relations; the seventh book deals with the six diplomatic policies [ṣāḍguṇya]; the eighth book enumerates and elucidates the various calamities befalling a kingdom, their causes and cures; the problems of war occupy Books 9 and 10, and the subsequent three books deal with diplomacy and espionage; the 14th book contains the esoteric part describing the various magical ways and means [aupaniṣadika] of eliminating the enemy; the last book enumerates “the method of science,” that is, the 32 methodological principles [tantrayuktayaḥ].
The primary concern of the Arthaśāstra is the state. Kauṭilya maintains that the moral purpose of the state is to maintain order. Nearly three millennia prior to Kauṭilya, the Hindu epic Mahābhārata had postulated that rājadharma, that is, the royal duty, was to provide security and protect morality and justice. Hence, the king must be endowed with legitimate coercive authority or daṇḍa [rod or stick]. In other words, the basis of political society or the state is daṇḍa (see Bhandarkar, 1977). The first mythological human ruler Vaivasata Manu exercised coercive authority or daṇḍa to preempt anarchy or the so-called “law of the fish” [mātsyanyāya]. As the Manusmṛti has it, “Daṇḍa alone governs all created beings . . . The wise declare that daṇḍa is the same as dharma” (cited in Spellman, 1964, p. 5).
Kauṭilya wholeheartedly endorses daṇḍanīti [rules of daṇḍa] by declaring that “Its administration constitutes the science of politics, having for its purpose the acquisition of (things) possessed, the augmentation of (things) preserved and the bestowal of (things) augmented on a worthy recipient” (AS I.iv.3-4).
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Nevertheless, countering Manu’s counsel that the state “should ever hold the Rod lifted up” for “seeking the orderly maintenance of worldly life” (AS I.iv.5), Kauṭilya insists that the ruler must dispense daṇḍa judiciously to provide general welfare [yogakṣema] for his people. As he observes, “the (king), severe with the Rod, becomes a source of terror to beings. The (king) mild with the Rod, is despised. The (king), just with the Rod, is honoured” (AS I.iv.8-10). An ideal Kauṭilyan ruler is more than a nṛpati [lord of men], he ought to become a rājarṣi [sage king] and control the six harmful drives, the śatrusadvarga: kāma [lust], kopa [anger], lobha [avarice], māna [vanity], mada [hauteur], and harṣa [levity] (AS I.vi.4-11). In other words, he must be a man of virtue [morals] and virtù [manliness].
The ruler is also enjoined to expand his realm by means of what Kauṭilya calls dharmavijaya [righteous conquest] and neither by wanton destruction [asūravijaya] nor because of excessive greed [lobhavijaya]. Kauṭilya in fact encourages aggression only against an enemy—active [śatru] as well as passive [ari] (AS XII.i.10-15; VII.ix.45). Hence, he insists that “even with very great losses and expenses, the destruction of the enemy must be brought about” (AS VII.xiii.33). If necessary, he is ready to endorse the adoption of foul means in a strategic battle [kūṭayuddha]. He of course favors a fair and open fight by a strong invader who has prepared himself adequately for attack. But in extreme circumstances a kūṭayuddha is permissible (AS X.iii.2).
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The Arthaśāstra also devotes an entire adhikaraṇa to describe the secret means, such as pralambhanam and adbhutopādanam [magical contrivances] or bhaiṣajyamantrayogaḥ [medicinal charms] to injure an enemy [paravaloghātaprayogaḥḥ] (AS XIV.i.iv).
However, even the victor is to be guided by a strict code of conduct. As the Arthaśāstra stipulates,
After gaining a new territory, he should cover the enemy’s faults with his own virtues, his virtues with double virtues. He should carry out what is agreeable and beneficial to the subjects by doing his own duties as laid down, by granting favours, giving exemptions, making gifts and showing honour. (AS XIII.v.3-8)
In short, the conqueror of the world should govern all its different peoples strictly in accordance with the duties prescribed to kings (AS XIII.iv.62).
Kongzi and Kauṭilya
In this comparative section, we note a crucial dissimilarity between the Analects and the Arthaśāstra. Unlike the latter, written as a discourse, the former is what may be called logia, that is, a record of conversations, something like the Indian Śrīśrīrāmakṛṣṇakathāmṛta [The Nectar of the Sayings of the Twice-Blessed Ramakrishna] or the German Tischreden [The Table Talk of Martin Luther). Hence there is little organization of chapters in the Analects as compared with the systematic chapters of the Arthaśāstra.
The Chinese ru and the Indian ācārya were born in a time of troubles: Kongzi during the fag end of the Western Zhou period and Kauṭilya at the end of the Nanda Empire. The political instability of their times perhaps convinced both the Chinese and the Indian authors of the efficacy of a firm but fair leadership of their peoples. Thus, both Kongzi and Kauṭilya emphasize the role of an ideal ruler: The former would like to see the king cultivate de and ren and follow dao, while the latter would prefer his nṛpati [lord of men] to be an adept in the art of virtue and virtù.
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Both the Master and the Paṇḍit are concerned for the perfectly educated and cultivated men, the ethico-cultural vanguard, so to speak, to take the helm of affairs of the polity with a view to bringing about harmony [datong] and a righteous regime [dharmarājya]. Hence, they wanted he ruler to be not only efficient but also popular. The most important discipline for a ruler is self-possession [ātmavattā], according to Kauṭilya (AS I.v.16), just as self-cultivation is the desired exercise for a leader, according to Kongzi.
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Kautilya’s king ought to aspire to be an amalgam of monk and monarch—rājarṣi or sage king. Similarly, Kongzi would like the ruler to practice self-cultivation, follow ren and de and thus simulate the shen-ren [sage kings] of yore.
Kauṭilya is quite aware that even if some rulers are cruel, corrupt, and crafty like snakes, they could still be reformed by good counsel (Sternbach, 1963, 83 [verse 25]). Kauṭilya’s rājarṣi need not be a saint in the strict sense of the term, but he certainly is conceived as one who must cultivate character rather than craft and combine in himself the virtue of a recluse [ṛṣi] and the virtù of a ruler. In short, he should endeavor to be “a king of righteous character,” who must perform what he “has promised to do, irrespective of good or bad results.”
For Kauṭilya, control of the senses, meaning sexual drive, is the basis of state [rājyamūlamindriyajayaḥ] (Sternbach, 1963, 10 1 [verse 82]; AS I.vi.3). By contrast, Kongzi’s ideal junzi has wider and specific injunctions and guidelines for his entire life. As the Master says,
The junzi holds three cautions. When he is young and his blood and energy [qi] are not yet settled, he is cautious about sex. When he is in his prime and his blood and energy have newly achieved strength, he is cautious about combativeness. When he is old and his blood and energy are declining, he is cautious about acquisitiveness. (AC XVI: 7)
A corollary of the above counsel concerning character building is the caution sounded against the dangers of degeneration and delinquency. As Kauṭilya has it, a depraved and delinquent king “not endowed with personal qualities, with defective constituent elements is either slaughtered by the subjects or subjugated by the enemies, even if he be the ruler up to the four corners of the earth” (AS VI.i.17). Hence, the Arthaśāstra declares,
In the happiness of the subjects lies the happiness of the king and in what is beneficial to the subjects his own benefit. What is dear to himself is not beneficial to the king, but what is dear to the subjects is beneficial to him. (AS I.xix.34)
It should be noted that while Kongzi talked about superior as well as small men only rarely did he refer to a king, as the latter was assumed to have come from the class of the junzis (who, reportedly, are mentioned 80 times in the Analects), Kauṭilya’s instructions and injunctions were directed primarily to the svāmī or the rājā and here both the Chinese and the Indian savants seem to be basically in agreement despite their different designations for the rulers.
Kongzi and Kauṭilya harbored almost similar outlook on human nature with a marked difference. Although the Chinese savant made a clear distinction between the xion ren and the xiao ren [small or low born or bred], he yet was convinced that the latter could elevate himself to the level of the former through education and self-cultivation. Kongzi’s overriding concern was for personal development that was possible by making use of one’s innate and inherited attitudes and inclination tempered and refined by education and in that sense the Analects could be a guidebook for education for growing up as a “gentleman.” He would thus like the ruler to deal with the iniquitous and the refractory elements by not punishing, but reforming them and hence his advice is:
Guide them with policies and align them with punishments and the people will evade them and have no shame. Guide them with virtue and align them with li and the people will have a sense of shame and fulfill their roles. (AC II: 3)
However, as Benjamin Schwartz has argued, Kongzi’s term, the noun “cheng,” for government may relate to something “political,” particularly when the word is used as verb and thus stands for something like “coercion” (Schwartz, 1985, p. 103).
Kauṭilya would have nothing to do with low caste and low bred persons, the so-called hoi polloi. He does not believe in their redemption or personal development through means other than repression and regimentation. He would have the ruler use daṇḍa to curb any lawlessness that might threaten the security of the state and thus suggests utmost vigilance and preparedness to use it (AS I.iv.5). He would rather have an infirm and ignorant prince of “noble birth” than an able and astute base born ruler. He even considers one “not of royal blood” weak . . . or without energy . . . unjustly behaved, or vicious, or trusting in fate, or who does whatever pleases him (AS VII.xi.27-28). In short, a low caste (i.e., a commoner) individual is evil incarnate.
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Kongzi and Kauṭilya display an attitude that classifies both the shi and the brāhmaṇ as elitist or casteist and masculist.
Then, even though they both refer to diplomacy, battle, treaty, and the like, these are not international in character. These occurrences happen among the same broad ethnic groups who may view each other as strangers or foreigners, but there are no real foreigners from outremer [overseas] or from beyond the mountains and deserts. Politically speaking, both fifth-century China and fourth-century India resembled pre-Roman Celtic Britannia comprising feuding chiefdoms and not nation states.
Kongzi’s Posthumous Odyssey
The memory of Kongzi’s cultural contributions has never suffered total oblivion except twice over a period of two millennia.
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Admittedly, almost from the start, his ideas confronted oppositional ideas from the works of the philosophers Laozi (604-531), Mozi (470-391), and Han Fei Zi (280-233). Though ruism or ruljia (that is, Kongzism) had to compete with Buddhism and Daoism under several regimes, Kongzi received wide recognition and respect by the rulers of Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE). He began to be worshipped in temples dedicated to his name during the rule of the first Han emperor Gaozu (r. 202-195). He was canonized as Baocheng Houxu-Ni-Gong [Marquis of Completed Praise, Illustrious Duke Ni] in the first year of emperor Bing (1 BCE-6 CE). His teachings became state ideology during the Han dynasty under its seventh Emperor Wu (r. 141-87). He was canonized the second time as Wen Sheng Ni Fu [Cultural Sage, Father Ni] in 492 CE by Xiaowendi (467-499), the seventh emperor of the Bei Wei [Northern Wei] dynasty. Ruism [Rujia] restored its orthodox role under the Song (960-1279) and Ming (1368-1644) dynasties for the next 700 years.
Ruijia came to be discredited in the mid-19th century when imperial China fared poorly in its confrontation with the technologically advanced West in the so-called Opium War (1839-1860). Kongzi’s ideas of social relations made some contribution to the failed mass movement known as Taiping Tanguo Yundong [Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement] (1851-1864). However, following the westernization program of the 1870s, Kongzi’s ideas came under fire by those who felt deeply humiliated by the incompetence of their inept and conservative government reared on ruist ideology. Thus, we have Lin Yutang (1895-1976), an intellectual, excoriating the Master:
It is a queer irony of fate the good old school teacher Confucius should ever be called a political thinker, and that his moral molly-coddle stuff should ever be honoured with the name of a “political” theory. The idea of government by virtue and by benevolent rulers is so fantastic that it cannot deceive a college sophomore. (Cited in Jingpan, 1990, p. 27)
During the Communist period (since the founding of the Peoples’ Republic of China [PRC] in 1949), especially following the Cultural Revolution of 1966, Kongzi came to be perceived as a relic from a bygone backward past destined to die in obscurity.
Kongzi Redivivus
The post–Cold War unipolar world saw the PRC gradually emerge from its ideological cocoon as an aggressive capitalistic superpower. This growing economic prosperity was accompanied by the process of globalization and its problem child the Internet that affected cultural mores as well as ideological realignment among the urban as well as to some extent rural life of the countries participating in globalization, especially the PRC. China attracted world attention following the highly publicized Tiananmen Square (Beijing) incident on June 2, 1989. And then, by the turn of the century, Chinese economy expanded exponentially, leading to the enhancement of the country’s global stature and status (see Bolton, 2017; Wang, 2014).
Interestingly, the savant of Lu has been resurrected and reinvented by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the second decade of the 21st century. Then, since Tiananmen, the CCP has been searching for a new ideology that will rear a political economy of a strong, but accountable government together with a growing economy. The party cadres believe ruism could rescue them from the onslaught of Western democratic ideals and help them protect and fortify an authoritarian regime (Schuman, 2015).
“National Studies” academies, the so-called si shu, have started throughout China for the study and teaching of the classics [wujing] to a new generation of Chinese. In Beijing, the People’s University opened the College of National Studies in 2005 and even erected a statue of Kongzi. In 2010, a movie on his life was released. The former president of the PRC Hu Jintao (r. 2003-2013) made Kongzi’s concept of a harmonious society a cornerstone of his ruling ideology (Melvin, 2007). His successor Xi Jinping (president since 2013), author of a multilingual monograph, The Governance of China (Jingpan, 2017), invoked the “brilliant insights” of the ancient Master (Kaplan, 2015, p. C3).
The most sensational development in the current popularity of as well as controversy over the interpretation of the Analects occurred following Yu Dan’s sensational blockbuster, Confucius From the Heart [Lunyu Xinde] (2013/2006), simplifying (and, as some readers have commented, falsifying) and glorifying the Analects as the recipe for a Chinese eudaimonia for mankind. If at the beginning of the 20th century Kongzi was blamed by the New Culture reformers for China’s ills, he was redeemed by the end of the century and reinstated firmly in the country’s political, cultural, and economic life.
However, the pop scholar Yu Dan has received some flaks from serious readers even as she has enjoyed celebrity. The most telling counter-interpretation of Kongzi comes from another scholar of Beijing. In his book Stray Dog: The Analects in My Eyes (2007), Professor Li Ling of Peking University observes,
The real Confucius, the one who actually lived, was neither a sage nor a king . . . He had no power or status—only morality and learning—and dared to critique the power élite of his day. He travelled around lobbying for his policies, racking his brains to help the rulers of his day with their problems, always trying to convince them to give up evil ways and be more righteous . . . He was tormented, obsessed, and driven to roam, pleading for his ideas, more like a stray dog than a sage. (Cited in Osnos, 2014)
Ling would respect a realistic portrait of the wise man of yore, who has something worthwhile to counsel and calm down the tumultuous and tormented life of modern human collectives at large (Osnos, 2014). Indeed, as Kongzi, reportedly, confided to Master Zeng, his dao was “nothing other than loyalty and reciprocity” (AC IV.15). Sadly, Kongzi’s laudable and lofty goals for the life of the individuals as well as of the social order remained a distant ideal that has “never been completely realized in Chinese history, nor in the history of the world” (Jingpan, 1990, p. 428). Ironically, though, a premonition of the futility of his enterprise is expressed in a little-known poem by the Master:
There stands T’ai Shan, a majestic height,
Our symbol of wisdom, virtue and right.
No axe cuts the thorns which flourish apace,
When the way is blocked (beyond recall),
Where will the traveler face?
Alas for a black despair so deep,
That all one can do is sigh and weep.
(Cited in Jingpan, 1990, p. 428)
Kauṭilya’s Posthumous Odyssey
The students of Indian political thought are quite familiar with Kauṭilya’s detractors. “Is there anything that is righteous,” asks King Harsavardhana’s (r. 606-647) court poet Bāṇabhaṭṭa, the author of Kādambarī, angrily, “for those for whom the science of Kauṭilya, merciless in its precepts, rich in cruelty, is an authority” (cited in Shamasastry, 1967, x)? The writers of Pañcatantra (a book of fables belonging to the late fifth or early sixth century CE) regard him frankly malevolent, while Viśākhadatta, the author of Mudrārākṣasa, calls him kūṭilamati [devious]. A Buddhist work, Maṇjuśrīmulakalpa (ca. fourth-ninth century CE), calls him dūrmati [wicked], krodhana [irascible], and pāpaka [profane] (cited in Indra, 1957, p. 94).
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A conventional politician, Kauṭilya commanded a limited interest outside the academic arena up to the 1980s, probably partly because, as Dr. Mabbett observes, the Arthaśāstra contains “plenty of superstition . . . fantasy, whimsy,” and partly because it is “in many ways . . . impractical and thoroughly unrealistic” (Mabbett, 1971, p. 78). Another scholar has observed that Kauṭilya’s “vision was limited, and that he failed to rise above contemporary belief in superstitions” (Majumdar, 1978-1980, p. 21). There are some justifications for such accusations, although we ought to recognize that man’s superstition has never been confined to a particular space or age in history. It is true that the section of the Arthaśāstra dealing with “remedial measures during calamities” [upanipāta pratikāraḥ] describes magical cures or correctives for most of the calamities and emphasizes the role of the magician-ascetics [māyāyogavid] in warding them off. “The third chapter in the fourteenth book,” Ms. Saunders aptly comments, “is pure, unmixed magic” (Saunders, 1922, p. 78).
Yet, in fairness to Kauṭilya, one must observe that he was not a naïve superstitious brāhmaṇ. In his descriptions of the “secret practices” for “overcoming the enemy,” he writes, a la Bṛhaspati, “whether calamities are absent or too many or normal the rites prescribed in the Atharvaveda as well as those of the expert ascetics must be performed for success” (AS IX.vii.84). At another place, he advises that “persons versed in the Atharvaveda and skilled in magic and mysticism should perform such rituals as to ward off the dangers from evil spirits” (AS IV.iii.40).
Even when he is a supporter of magic and mantra in combatting the calamities, his recommendations for at least one of them, famine, are far from impractical or magical. During famine, he would like the ruler to distribute seeds and provisions to the people, embark on a policy of reduction or shifting (of the population), “or he should migrate with people to another region and where crops have grown,” or “he should make sowings of grains, vegetables, roots and fruits along with the water-works or hunt deer, beasts, birds, wild animals and fish” (AS IV.iii.17-18). All these recommendations make their author neither a superstitious believer in witchcraft nor a passive fatalist. Kauṭilya in fact considers fatalism [daivapramāṇa] an attitude of the low-born [arājavījī] (AS VI.i.13). He is indeed a practical man of action who believes that “the root of material wealth is activity, of material disaster its reverse” (AS I.xix.35).
It is also important to note Kauṭilya’s personal attitude to astrology. As he says, “the object slips away from the foolish person who continuously consults the stars; for an object is the (auspicious) constellation for (achieving) an object; what will the stars do?” (AS IX.iv.26). He frankly advises the government to collect money from credulous subjects “after showing danger from an evil spirit” and then warding it off “for the citizens and the country people for money” (AS V.ii.41-44). On another occasion, he prescribes banishment as a penalty for “practisers of black magic and sorcery” (AS IV.iv.15).
Perhaps Kauṭilya’s approval of divorce [parasparaṁ dvesānmokṣaḥ] and widow marriage (AS III.iii.16; ii.21) might have made him a heretic in the eyes of the orthodox and powerful brāhmans. The arthaśāstras were denounced for their stark materialism causing social and political decay in the troubled period from the second century BCE to the third century CE witnessing invasions by the Parthians, the Śakas, and the Kuṣāṇas. During this “era of social repression and political subjugation, the Mānava Dharmaśāstra and the Manu Saṁhitā became prominent and the Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra was relegated to the background” (Bandyopadhyaya, 1980, p. 255). Kauṭilya’s authority “lost its importance after the 13th century when the Turkish conquest began” (Majumdar, 1978-1980, p. 17).
Even though there are some sporadic instances of the Arthaśāstra’s influence oṇ the nīti and the kathā literature and the Purāṇas as well as on numerous writers such as Aśvaghoṣa, Daṇḍī, Yājñavalkya, or Vātsyāyana, to name a select few, the actual political use of Kauṭilya’s text was made by two astute ministers of the Pala dynasty of Bengal (eighth to 12th centuries): Darbhapāni and Kedāra Miśra (Sarkar, 1922, p. 159). An 18th-century work Śivatattvaratnākara accorded Kauṭilya “a celebrated place with no less distinguished teachers of Hindu polity than Bṛhaspati and Śukra” (Dikshitar, 1927, p. 180).
Kauṭilya Redivivus
Scholars differ on their assessment of Kauṭilya’s posthumous reputation and influence.
For instance, Dr. Ghosh maintains that “what Kautilya teaches with so much pedantry is the art of violating law and justice with impunity in the ceaseless struggle for political power and economic aggrandizement” (Ghosh, 1947, p. 70). An Italian Indologist observed,
Kautilya appears in his somewhat infantile sincerity more poignant than Machiavelli in the cold analysis of political phenomena, more inhuman and inexorable in the counsels as to the means to be adopted for the realization of the ends of the state. (Bottazzi, 1914, cited and translated by Sarkar, 1926, p. 556)
This accusation is echoed by a British popular writer of Western political thought (Bowle, 1977). A different view is presented by Drekmeier (1962, p. 5) that “Kauṭilya may not have been India’s greatest political mind, but he is at least accessible and his peers—if any—are not.” As Heesterman has written, the practical value of the Arthaśāstra for is time, at least, lies in its “diffusion of power and scattering of resources” with a view to achieving “a universalist bureaucratic state . . . within the context of a particularistic ‘tribal’ system” (Heesterman, 1985, p. 140). Arthur Basham observes that the references of Cāṇakya’s Arthaśāstra in later literature refer to Cāṇakyanīti, the collection of aphorisms on morals and politics by Kauṭilya (Cāṇakya’s another name) and thus seeks to moderate the euphoric paeans, such as “Kautilyaism first, Kautilyaism second, Kautilyaism always has remained the motto of the Hindu as of other pillars of the state” (Sarkar, 1926, p. 157).
Curiously enough, Kauṭilya’s story commands considerable dramatic interest in India, particularly in West Bengal. The theater-loving Bengalis enjoy listening to the recoded version of Dwijendralal Ray’s (1913) Candragupta, the most popular professional stage production of Kolkata in the 1930s and 1940s. As late as 1982, Kolkata’s prestigious drama organization Vahurūpī successfully staged Mr. Manoj Mitra’s entertaining farce Rājadarśan, which pokes fun at a scheming and cantankerous brāhmaṇ caricaturing the Kauṭilya of folklore. Such nonacademic interests have no doubt contributed immensely to the distortion of the historical Cāṇakya, but we need not devalue the Arthaśāstra on this score.
However, Kauṭilya’s only official Indian recognition until recently has been the renaming in 1956 of the Diplomatic Enclave of New Delhi, the sector for foreign embassies, as Cāṇakyapurī [Cāṇakyaland]. Yet sadly enough, “India does not even possess as much as a research institute on political science named after this illustrious teacher of politics!” (Sil, 1989, p. 141). However, Cāṇakya has of late been touched by something like the Kongzi moments. In the wake of India’s globalization since the late 1980s and the early 1990s of the past century, there has been a resurgence of cultural nationalism. As Pinaki Bhattacharya maintains, “the reading of Arthashastra, research influenced by it and its emanation in this century is largely influenced by the desire of Indian strategists to have a grand strategist of their own in the broader market place of ideas” (Bhattacharya, 2014, p. 734). There has been a great academic interest in excavating India’s cultural archives with a view to discovering or reinventing their intellectual resources to showcase in the global arena and thereby proclaiming India’s primacy in civilizational enterprise not only in Asia but in the world at large. One scholar posits with unabashed nonchalance that the “contemporary relevance” of Kauṭilya “can serve the purpose of asserting the original thinking of the Asian epistemic communities” and she accomplishes her goal by emancipating the Arthaśāstra from its “power-based Realist” prison and situating the freed text on an “eclectic theoretical base” (Shahi, 2014, p. 68). Another scholar argues that the Arthaśāstra should be regarded as “politic” (meaning “political”) par excellence (Banerjee, 2012). The resurgent Kauṭilya’a political and diplomatic insights in the researches of New Delhi’s Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses are regularly published as short articles in the journal Strategic Analysis.
Conclusion
Both Kongzi and Kautilya would have liked their rulers to be well cultivated, disciplined, and conscientious. Despite their preference for a meritorious and conscientious ruler of men, their prescriptions were too abstract and rigorous to be helpful for a politician and a statesman. Thus, they had their detractors and acolytes with their praises and polemics, both colorful hyperbolic. As a matter of fact, the two authors never found their ideal statesman. Yet, they ended their life in their own ways and under different circumstances. It appears Kongzi’s was an undeservedly humdrum end of a harried life whereas Kauṭilya, who had avenged himself by dethroning his foolish and arrogant Nanda employer and dared to shock and enrage his young Maurya monarch with the tale of the latter’s mysterious birth, chose to quit his administrative position on his own accord and give up his personal properties to die as an ascetic anchorite.
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