Authored almost 2,500 years ago by the ‘Indian Machiavelli’ Kautilya - and believed lost for over a millennium - this Indian Classic was re-discovered in 1905 by scholar Rudrapatnam Shamashastry as he sifted through an unpromising collection of palm leaf manuscripts.

The Arthashastra is a unique and comprehensive guide for newly-elevated Kings on the subtleties – foul or fair – of statecraft.

Nothing is omitted: the text covers mundane matters such as divorce, murder, burglary, highway robbery, through care of livestock, horse and elephant training, taxes of all kinds, (even including government impositions on prostitutes), War Strategies using threat, deception, kidnapping, black-mail, and the use of spies of various categories. Murder of rivals (or overly-ambitious brothers and sons) is covered in appalling detail. This is a shocking and unscrupulous compendium of the subterfuge and trickery to be used in attaining, and keeping, a Crown.

Shamashastry’s English translation was published to wide acclaim ten years after his 1905 discovery, and completely changed the scholarly view of Indian government, (which until then was believed to have been copied from the Greeks). Given that the Arthashastra predates Alexander’s invasion, it is quite possible the Greeks may have stolen ‘their’ ideas from India!