DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.53502#0046
38 Kautilya Arthasastra
A.,1 but the variety of professions in the latter work
is far greater than in Megasthenes.
In describing his second class of husbandmen,
Megasthenes declares the whole land to be the pro-
perty of the king, just as a Sloka quoted in the com-
mentary on A. II, 24 makes the king owner of both
land and water in his realm. A close examination of
the whole chapter on the Sitadhyaksa (II, 24) shows,
however, that the ownership of the king was confined
to the crown land called Slta and did not extend to
the land owned by the ordinary peasant.
Some other correspondence, though striking in
themselves, possess no chronological value, because
they refer to practices which were prevalent at all
times in India. Of this kind are the remarks about
elephants and their treatment (fr. 1 and 36-38; A. II,
31, 32); “the exercising of the body by friction ” (fr.
27) and the duties of the Samvakaka (I, 21); the king’s
guard of armed women (fr. 27) and the troops of armed
women in the royal palace (I, 21).
The numerous and glaring discrepancies between
Megasthenes and K. are no doubt to some extent due
to the idealising tendencies of the Greek writer who
was anxious to present the life and manners of the
Indians in a very favourable light, much as at a later
period Tacitus in his Germania held out the Germans
of his time as a model to his own countrymen. Thus
Megasthenes praises the Indians because they keep
no slaves, all men being equal and no slavery per-
mitted (fr. 1. 26. 27. 41). K., on the other hand, fre-
quently refers to slavery and mentions no less than 12
1 See Dr. F. W. Thomas in Rapson’s Ancient India, 477 n. 3.
A.,1 but the variety of professions in the latter work
is far greater than in Megasthenes.
In describing his second class of husbandmen,
Megasthenes declares the whole land to be the pro-
perty of the king, just as a Sloka quoted in the com-
mentary on A. II, 24 makes the king owner of both
land and water in his realm. A close examination of
the whole chapter on the Sitadhyaksa (II, 24) shows,
however, that the ownership of the king was confined
to the crown land called Slta and did not extend to
the land owned by the ordinary peasant.
Some other correspondence, though striking in
themselves, possess no chronological value, because
they refer to practices which were prevalent at all
times in India. Of this kind are the remarks about
elephants and their treatment (fr. 1 and 36-38; A. II,
31, 32); “the exercising of the body by friction ” (fr.
27) and the duties of the Samvakaka (I, 21); the king’s
guard of armed women (fr. 27) and the troops of armed
women in the royal palace (I, 21).
The numerous and glaring discrepancies between
Megasthenes and K. are no doubt to some extent due
to the idealising tendencies of the Greek writer who
was anxious to present the life and manners of the
Indians in a very favourable light, much as at a later
period Tacitus in his Germania held out the Germans
of his time as a model to his own countrymen. Thus
Megasthenes praises the Indians because they keep
no slaves, all men being equal and no slavery per-
mitted (fr. 1. 26. 27. 41). K., on the other hand, fre-
quently refers to slavery and mentions no less than 12
1 See Dr. F. W. Thomas in Rapson’s Ancient India, 477 n. 3.