User:Chanakya263

hai chanakya Chanakya

Date of Birth 	: 	350 BC Date of Death 	: 	275 BC Place of Birth 	: 	Pataliputra Literary Persons • 	Kalidasa • 	Mirza Ghalib • 	Rabindranath Tagore • 	R.K. Narayan • 	Salman Rushdie • 	Subramaniya Bharati • 	Tulsidas • 	Vikram Seth • 	Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay • 	Prof. Jagdish N. Bhagwati • 	Munshi Premchand • 	Raja Rao • 	Amartya Sen • 	Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar • 	Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay • 	Nirad C. Chaudhuri • 	Keshab Chandra Sen • 	Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay • 	Dhan Gopal Mukerji • 	Amitav Ghosh • 	Amit Chaudhuri • 	Mulk Raj Anand • 	Chanakya • 	Shashi Tharoor

Chanakya, also known as Kautilya or Vishnugupta, was born in Pataliputra, Magadh (modern Bihar), and later moved to Taxila, in Gandhar province(now in Pakistan). He was a professor (acharya) of political science at the Takshashila University and later the Prime Minister of the Emperor Chandragupta Maurya. He is regarded as one of the earliest known political thinkers, economists and king-makers. He was the man to envision the first Indian empire by unification of the then numerous kingdoms in the Indian sub-continent and provide the impetus for fights against the Greek conqueror Alexander. Chanakya is perhaps less well known outside India compared to other social and political philosophers of the world like Confucius and Machiavelli. His foresight and wide knowledge coupled with politics of expediency helped found the mighty Mauryan Empire in India. He compiled his political ideas into the 'Arthashastra', one of the world's earliest treatises on political thought and social order. His ideas remain popular to this day in India. In Jawaharlal Nehru's Discovery of India, Chanakya has been called the Indian Machiavelli. Three books are attributed to Chanakya: Arthashastra, Nitishastra and Chanakya Niti. Arthashastra (literally 'the Science of Material Gain' in Sanskrit) is arguably the first systematic book on economics. It discusses monetary and fiscal policies, welfare, international relations, and war strategies in details. Many of his nitis or policies have been compiled under the book title Chanakya Niti. Nitishastra is a treatise on the ideal way of life, and shows Chanakya's in depth study of the Indian way of life. According to a legend, while Chanakya served as the Prime Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, he started adding small amounts of poison in Chandragupta's food so that he would get used to it. The aim of this was to prevent the Emperor from being poisoned by enemies. One day the queen, Durdha, shared the food with the Emperor while she was pregnant. Since she was not used to eating poisoned food, she died. Chanakya decided that the baby should not die; hence he cut open the belly of the queen and took out the baby. A drop (bindu in Sanskrit) of poison had passed to the baby's head, and hence Chanakya named him Bindusara. Bindusara would go on to become a great king and to father the greatest Mauryan Emperor since Chandragupta - Asoka. When Bindusara became a youth, Chandragupta gave up the throne and followed the Jain saint Bhadrabahu to present day Karnataka and settled in a place known as Sravana Belagola. He lived as an ascetic for some years and died of voluntary starvation according to Jain tradition. Chanakya meanwhile stayed as the Prime Minister of Bindusara. Bindusara also had a minister named Subandhu who did not like Chanakya. One day he told Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the murder of his mother. Bindusara asked the nurses who confirmed this story and he became very angry with Chanakya. It is said that Chanakya, on hearing that the Emperor was angry with him, thought that anyway he was at the end of his life. He donated all his wealth to the poor, widows and orphans and sat on a dung heap, prepared to die by total abstinence from food and drink. Bindusara meanwhile heard the full story of his birth from the nurses and rushed to beg forgiveness of Chanakya. But Chanakya would not relent. Bindusara went back and vent his fury on Subandhu, who asked for time to beg for forgiveness from Chanakya. Subandhu, who still hated Chanakya, wanted to make sure that Chanakya did not return to the city. So he arranged for a ceremony of respect, but unnoticed by anyone, slipped a smoldering charcoal ember inside the dung heap. Aided by the wind, the dung heap swiftly caught fire, and the man behind the Mauryan Empire and the author of Arthashastra was burned to death. His main philosophy was "A debt should be paid off till the last penny; An enemy should be destroyed without a trace". He seemed to have lived - and died - by his philosopy. --- Ancient Indians – Satya Samhita Alexander’s Sandrokottus was not Chanakya’s Chandragupta! Posted in Alexander, Chanakya, Chandragupta, History, India, Indian, Sandrokottus, ancient by satyask on May 8, 2009

Two mistakes have been made with respect to our history.

Mistake 1: That Alexander did defeat Porus. This mistake was propogated by Plutarch. See The spinning of a legend by Kamalesh Aiyer.

Mistake 2: That the Sandrokottus referred to by Plutarch is the same as Chandragupta Maurya. This mistake was made, based on phonetics alone, by the linguist William Jones and propagated by Colonial and Main Stream Historians. Palibothra referred to by the greeks was not the Pataliputra of Indian accounts.

* The greek accounts do not talk about Nandas, Mauryas or Chanakya. Mudra Rakshasam (by Visakhadutta) does not talk about the greeks at all. It only talks of the conflict of Chandragupta Maurya with the Nandas.

chandra gupta maurya * The greeks say that Sandrokottus deposed his father Xandrames and had a son called Sandrocyptus. Sanskrit accounts tell us Chandragupta Maurya got rid of Dhanananda and had a son called Bindusara, who was the father of Asokavardhana.

Significance for us: Dates of our historical Events.

1. Chandragupta Maurya was not of 4th century BC. So when did the Mauryans rule? 2. During the time of a king called Viśvasphūrji, the Srimad Bhagavatham was appended with canto 12.1 This gives the duration of the Mauryan empire and tells in one line how a Brahmana (Chanakya) deposes Dhanananda and his 8 sons and installs Chandragupta Maurya on the throne. Since the major part of the Srimad Bhagavatam was written at the end of the Dvapara Yuga, canto 12.1 uses future tense for kaliyuga events to maintain the original period in which the Bhagavatam was first written. This is was a common style at that period. It also recounts the entire period from Puranjaya and the Pradyotans to the Kiliakilas andViśvasphūrji. 3. Varahamihira has said there was a that a 1050 year gap between Parikshit and Mahapadma Nanda, the father of Dhanananda.