Megasthenes and Kautilya:Builders of our past

How do the excerpts from the account of Megasthenese and the Arthashastra useful in reconstructing a history of Mauryan administration?

There are two major written sources to know about the Mauryans. One is from a greek ambassador to India as his travelogue and the other from the architect of the empire itself, The famous kautilya.

Kautilya was an Indian teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor. He is traditionally identified as Kauṭilya or Vishnu Gupta, who authored the ancient Indian political research paper , the Arthashastra.He is considered the pioneer of the field of political science and economics in India. His book gives a detailed account of Vast Mauryan bureaucracy and theories of Kingship, state, foreign policy, economy, duties of a king and practical teaching to an emperor.

Megasthenese was a Greek ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He was born in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) and became an ambassador of Seleucus I Nicator of the Seleucid dynasty possibly to Chandragupta Maurya in Pataliputra. Megasthenes gave an account of India in his book Indica. The original book is now lost, but its fragments have survived in later Greek and Latin works. The earliest of these works are those by Diodorus Siculus, Strabo (Geographica), Pliny, and Arrian. In this book he gives a detailed account of Mauryan Administration and Society including the caste system.

These two sources give an opportunity to understand the formation of a state, its administration and the authority and power of an emperor in ancient India.