Why Kautilya is regarded as the greatest Thinker of India?

At the time when Kautilya was living, India consisted of a number of small states, which were constantly at war with each other. There was very little peace within the States either. But the troublesome environment had produced one great political thinker Kautilya.

He has not been superseded in depth of thought and breadth of vision by any subsequent political thinker in India. Kautilya is credited with being the founder of the Arthasastra tradition as distinguished from the Nitisastra tradition. He was the first to make Political Economy an independent discipline; while paying lip service to the ideal of right, he propounded a theory of politics which dealt with the immediate practical concerns of polity.

He was also known for his exceptional, frank and candid ideas. He wrote with complete detachment, and sometimes cynicism, about issues of politics. It is remarkable that while Machiavelli who had views similar to those of Kautilya, was denounced throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Kautilya was general admired and revered in ancient India as the greatest of authors of politics except by Vishsakhadatta in his play Mudraraksas.

For the first time he emphasised the need for a strong political centre in India, even outlined a structure of government, which would enable society to create this centre.

One of the basic presuppositions of Kautilya’s thought is his acute awareness of the dangers anarchy as well as the absolute necessity to transcend it by establishing order in society. Kautilya to use the simile of larger fish eating the smaller when anarchy prevails

He was convinced that the society can never hope to be in peace without a strong State. With this as the backdrop to his ideas, he repudiated any idea of attacking the state authority or slaying the rule He is conscious that a weak king encourages impoverishment, greed, and disaffection in his subject when people are impoverished they become greedy and overturn the State.

Kautilya puts more emphasis on the need for the rulers to curb the unrighteous and to protect the righteous, by respecting the leaders of the people and not deposing the worthy.

Although Kautilya is in favour of a strong king, it may be doubted whether he was in favour of an absolute monarchy. In his state the king had to work under so many restrictions. He further held that the king was never the proprietor of the soil and hence could not be called absolute. But in Kautilya’s time the state had become highly bureaucratic. Indeed the bureaucratic apparatus described in Kautilya Arthasastra very closely resembles the bureaucratic structure we have today.

Kautilya is convinced that the state is sovereign and with it the king must be supreme the king above all other elements. After giving seven elements of the state such as the king, the minister, the country, the treasury, the fort, the army, the friends and the territory, he declares a good king ca improve even the most defective constituents.

King is given the last say in all matters. The emphasis o the principle of the kingship became the basis of consolidating perhaps the first centralised government in India.