Chanakya (350 – 275 BCE) was an Indian teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kautilya or Vishnu Gupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise, the Arthashastra (Economics). As such, he is considered as the pioneer of the field of political science and economics in India, and his work is thought of as an important precursor to classical economics. His works were lost near the end of the Gupta Empire and not rediscovered until 1915.
Originally a professor of economics and political science at the ancient university of Taxila, Chanakya managed the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta's rise to power at a young age. He is widely credited for having played an important role in the establishment of the Maurya Empire, which was the first empire in archaeologically recorded history to rule most of the Indian subcontinent.
Chanakya served as the chief advisor to both Chandragupta and his son Bindusara. Chankaya and Chandragupta have been credited with defeating the powerful Nanda Empire and establishing the new Maurya Empire.
Chanakya continued to serve as an advisor to Chandragupta after the establishment of the Maurya Empire. According to a popular legend mentioned in the Jain texts, Chanakya used to add small doses of poison to the food eaten by Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (mithridatism) in order to make him immune to the poisoning attempts by the enemies. Unaware, Chandragupta once fed some of his food to his queen, Durdhara, who was seven days away from delivery. The queen, not immune to the poison, collapsed and died within a few minutes. In order to save the heir to the throne, Chanakya cut the queen's belly open and extracted the foetus just as she died. The baby was named Bindusara, because he was touched by a drop (bindu) of blood having poison.
According to one legend, Chanakya retired to the jungle and starved himself to death. According to another legend mentioned by the Jain writer Hemachandra, Chanakya died as a result of a conspiracy by Subandhu, one of Bindusara's ministers. Subandhu, who did not like Chanakya, told Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the murder of his mother. Bindusara asked the nurses, who confirmed the story of his birth. Bindusara was horrified and enraged. When Chanakya, who was an old man by this time, learned that the King was angry with him, he decided to end his life. In accordance with the Jain tradition, he decided to starve himself to death. By this time, the King had found out the full story which was that Chanakya was not responsible for his mother's death, which was an accident. He asked Subandhu to convince Chanakya to give up his plan to kill himself. However, Subandhu instead conducted a ceremony for Chanakya only to burn him alive.
Two books are attributed to Chanakya: Arthashastra and Chanakya Niti, also known as Chanakya Neeti-shastra.
