Two Interesting Excellent Articles = Chanakya Kautilya, Confucius and Machiavelli philosophies compared

[Thirumala Raya Halemane]

Two Interesting Excellent Articles = 

Chanakya Kautilya, Confucius and Machiavelli philosophies compared

Fwd (Me to Keshava PRASAD Halemane, Cc to ..)

2026 Feb 13, 2026

Dear doDDaNNa,

Please see these two interesting excellent articles, comparing Chanakya Kautilya philosophy with those of Confucius and Machiavelli. I think I came across them online, very likely on someone's post on linkedin or so last year.

Of course, they all lived at different times in history, and in different civilizations, different parts of the world. So the contexts were very different. But these philosophical comparisons have their own academic as well as practical style interest, and it is done well in these articles. 

Chanakya was in Sanatana Dharma Hindu Civilization, and he faced personal challenges including what can be described as an anti-Brahmin attitude holding royal ruling structure which wanted to exert power for its own sake, keep the Brahmins suppressed under the ruling powers, 

So, in effect, it created a divide-and-rule between the ruling power-holding elites and the rest, and in which perhaps corruption also had some significant role. So, there was corruption of power, authority, rule, wealth, that is a corrupted system, we can say perhaps. Confucius in China, Machiavelli in Europe were products of and living in ancient Chinese and European civilizations, a different history compared to Sanatana Hindu Dharma Civilization.

In all those historical times, kingdoms and monarchies were the norm, all over the world, and it was important for the rulers to hold onto power and to the seat of power, besides providing good defense and good governance to the kingdom and the people. 

The ruling King or Queen was considered as the representative of God providing good governance, fair and just etc, that is like a Dharmic rule.

Both articles are Excellent. Take a look. 

Raya

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(1) 

Confucius and Kautilya on Establishing Moral Order for Prevention of Government and Market Failures

Balbir S. Sihag, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA, USA. 

Theoretical Economics Letters, Vol.6 No.1, 20-27, February 2016

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=63195 

Abstract

The main objectives of this paper are of two kinds: first one may be described as historical in the sense of correcting more than two thousand years of misinterpretations of the ideas of Confucius and Kautilya on establishing a moral order and the nature of its relationship to the legalistic approach; the second one is to highlight the relevance of moral order not only to create peace and harmony but also enhance the creation and sharing of knowledge and lowering of transaction costs. Since both creation and sharing of knowledge depend on genuine trust, which flourishes only in an ethical environment, and not in a “culture of suspicion”. It is indicated that their insights or pearls of wisdom are actually more relevant to today’s knowledge-based economies than they were to economies during their own times. They would have emphasized the warming of hearts to each other to solve the problem of global warming.

(see rest in the article)

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(2) 

Kautilya and Machiavelli on Justice, Prosperity and National Security

Balbir S. Sihag University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, USA. 

Theoretical Economics Letters, Vol.7 No.3, 381-397, April 2017

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=75066  

Abstract

As soon as Kautilya’s Arthashastra was translated into English in 1915, its comparison with Machiavelli’s Prince, particularly by the western Indologists, started in earnest. Their main goal has been to show that Machiavelli’s Prince was pale in comparison to the ruthless realism in Kautilya’s Arthashastra. Several user-friendly tables are constructed from the texts in The Arthashastra and Prince to i) strongly refute and correct such distortions and misrepresentations of Kautilya’s ideas, and ii) show Kautilya had much deeper understanding of the issues than Machiavelli. Interestingly, a closer look reveals that Machiavelli, although far less than Kautilya, but had deeper insights into economic issues than Adam Smith. It is also indicated that Kautilya, just with one sentence, captured the essence of liberty as empowerment of the weak against the powerful, Mill could not do that with his whole book on Liberty.

(see rest in the article)

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in the photos here, derived from old studio photos, we see, our sons, elder Kaviraj, and younger Shilpi,  and parents Usha and ThirumalaRaya (me)

[Thirumala Raya Halemane]