Reddit reviews The Arthashastra (Penguin classics)

>Your Upper casts could kill starve and maim lower castes with impunity


LOL! Utter and complete ahistorical crap. Sudras were free people under the law and owned property that was protected by the law. Further, they were paid workers that worked when they felt like.

Ref: The Arthashastra.

Arthashastra by Kautilya.

This is a really old book, and a lot of the technical terms, such as the denotation of currency, demand some meandering of imagination, but it does make an interesting read. What I found most fascinating about this (some 2000 year old text) is how sophisticated their tactics of surveillance, secrecy and deception were - and the parallels that exist in society today. It helps unearth the principles and techniques from the gizmos.

EDIT: Formatting.

As a hipster political scientist, whenever I see someone on Machiavelli's proverbial dick, I have to offer that an old Indian known as Kautilya put's him to shame and proceeded Nick by a thousand years. He wrote something called the Arthashastra and if you enjoyed the PG13 Prince, you're gonna love this guy's work

Which Arthashastra? There are many. Penguin one is good http://www.amazon.in/Arthashastra-Kautilya/dp/0140446036

Have read it in parts though. Found it better than other one I had in Hindi years back at my grandpa's place which was highly rated but I didnt like it much. Also it was not printed anymore so...Anyways you will need someone knowledgeable to ask Qs to otherwise book is useless.

Its not easy to transpose his teachings to modern era. But once you start dissecting problem to its root cause, human nature & how vedanta breaks it down, then the correlation of his principles to situations becomes slightly easier.

And even then you do feel confused sometimes. As its common say in our culture, a guru is a must. Only realized it after trying to understand Kautilya and Ayurved.