Manuscripts of Kautalya Artha Sastra

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Damodara Dasa

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Jul 9, 2019, 3:48:10 AM7/9/19
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Hare Krishna.

Respected Vidvaj-janas,

I am curious to know about Kautiliya (or Kautalya) Artha Sastra as we have it now in book form. When and from which places old manuscripts of it were discovered? Or is it a scripture being taught in parampara system from time unknown?

As far as I could understand, the first manuscripts of it were found somewhere in Karnataka by Shamashastry (but I may be completely wrong). In this case also I would like to know whether more manuscripts of this great scripture exist at different libraries?

Thankyou,
Hari Guru Vaisnava das,
damodara das

Siddharth Wakankar

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Jul 9, 2019, 4:02:26 AM7/9/19
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Please consult the volumes of the New Catalogus Catalogorum of the Sanskrit Dept.of Madras Uni.under
the entry of either Kautilya or Arthashastra,where you will get info.about MSS. commentaries, translations and printed editions.

Best of luck in your search.

Prof. Siddharth Y Wakankar.
Vadodara.9427339942.

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Shashi Joshi

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Jul 9, 2019, 4:16:08 AM7/9/19
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The text was considered lost by colonial era scholars, until a manuscript was discovered in 1905.[23] A copy of the Arthashastra in Sanskrit, written on palm leaves, was presented by a Tamil Brahmin from Tanjore to the newly opened Mysore Oriental Libraryheaded by Benjamin Lewis Rice.[10] The text was identified by the librarian Rudrapatnam Shamasastry as the Arthashastra. During 1905-1909, Shamasastry published English translations of the text in installments, in journals Indian Antiquary and Mysore Review.[23][24]

During 1923-1924, Julius Jolly and Richard Schmidtpublished a new edition of the text, which was based on a Malayalam script manuscript in the Bavarian State Library. In the 1950s, fragmented sections of a north Indian version of Arthashastra were discovered in form of a Devanagari manuscript in a Jain library in PatanGujarat. A new edition based on this manuscript was published by Muni Jina Vijay in 1959. In 1960, R. P. Kangle published a critical edition of the text, based on all the available manuscripts.[24]Numerous translations and interpretations of the text have been published since then.[23]

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.[25] 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.[25]


From wikipedia


Thanks,
Shashi

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Damodara Dasa

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Jul 10, 2019, 12:31:30 PM7/10/19
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Hare Krishna.

Attached are the snaps of the information I aready used for my idea. This is Introduction to the RP Kangle's critical Edition. 

Thankyou,
Hari Guru Vaisnava das,
damodara das
Arthasastra - Manuscripts used for R P Kangle's Critical Edition.pdf
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