King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India

Arthasastra is a very important text in the understanding of ancient Hindu thinking, and Olivelle's translation will help researchers to make analyses with precision and without falling into anachronisms. * Strategic Analysis *
For years unreadable and inaccurate translations have discouraged general readers and Sanskrit-less scholars of India from reading the Arthasastra, though this work is central to anyone's understanding of Indian history, law, politics, economics, society, religion, and much more. At last we have a translation of extraordinary erudition and clarity that makes this fascinating and crucially important text truly accessible. The prose is transparent, clean, devoid of jargon or highly technical language; the meticulously detailed notes clarify the more abstruse points. All of Patrick Olivelle's translations are first-rate, but this is his great masterpiece. * Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, University of Chicago Divinity School *
Patrick Olivelle's fluent and illuminatingly annotated translation will be a revelation to all those interested in ancient India and in the organization of ancient states more generally. By offering a powerful counter to the popular notion of an ancient India focused only on transcendent religious speculation, it significantly complicates and deepens our picture of that place and time. * Stephanie W. Jamison, Professor of Asian Languages and Cultures and of Indo-European Studies, the University of California, Los Angeles *
Patrick Olivelle crowns a distinguished career by translating one of the most difficult, and by many measures the most valuable, of Sanskrit texts, Kautilya's Arthasastra. A lifetime of scholarly translations from Sanskrit has prepared him to scale these daunting heights, and the result is magnificent. The work is informed by a strongly-argued theory about the composition of the Arthasastra, and the translation is richly annotated. All scholars of ancient India will benefit from this splendid new translation. * Thomas R. Trautmann, Professor Emeritus of History and Anthropology, University of Michigan *
Patrick Olivelle, better qualified for the job than any other Indologist by decades of experience in translating ancient and medieval Indian texts, as well as by his long and highly productive engagement with Indian legal literature, has presented a new translation of the famous and in many regards unique Arthasastra of Kautilya, the only extant witness of the once much larger genre of texts dealing with the science of law and statecraft. By a rare combination of philological acumen, insightful recognition of textual and exegetical problems, an enviably vast erudition, and a developed feel for the language, Olivelle has succeeded in preparing a richly annotated translation that is both readable and utterly reliable. It not only outdoes all its predecessors but will also stand unchallenged the test of time. * Albrecht Wezler, Emeritus Professor of Sanskrit, University of Hamburg, Germany *
The Arthasastra is a work of exceptional importance for understanding the history of classical India. Olivelle's careful, painstaking, and transparent translation of Kautilya's great treatise is an exceptional work as well, and an outstanding contribution to the field of Indian studies. * H-Net Reviews *