Page 22 - Sri Canakya Niti

Preface to the First Edition

Dr. R. Shamashastry, the English translator of Kautilya’s Artha
Shastra, quotes a prediction from the Vishnu Purana, fourth canto,
twenty-fourth chapter, regarding the appearance of Chanakya Pandit.
Incidentally, Vyasa scribed this prediction 2700 years before this
political heavyweight and man of destiny was to appear. “(First)
Mahapadma, then his sons—only nine in number—will be the lords
of the earth for a hundred years. A brahmana named Kautilya will
slay these Nandas. On their death, the Mauryas will enjoy the earth.
Kautilya himself will install Chandragupta on the throne. His son will
be Bindusara and his son will be Ashokavardhana.” Similar prophecies
are also repeated in the Bhagavata, Vayu and Matsya Puranas.
In presenting this work, I have used as references two old English
versions of Chanakya Niti-shastra published at the close of the
3
Eighteenth Century. I have also consulted another version, an
unedited manuscript from the ISKCON Center in Vrindavana
which contained both an English translation and Latinized Sanskrit
transliteration. It was, however, the learned Vaishnava Pandit and
scholar of Sanskrit Shri V. Badarayana Murthy of the Udipi Madhva
School who helped me see the depth and import of these verses from
the original Devanagari script.

I have been told that our blessed spiritual master His Divine Grace
A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda had expressed a desire that
Shri Chanakya Niti Shastra be properly translated into English. It is
hoped that our present rendering will be at least useful if not instructive
to the reader. Let us now examine a few words on the science of niti, or
common sense, from the pen of Shrila Bhaktivinode Thakur, the great
nineteenth century devotee-pioneer of the worldwide propagation of
Lord Chaitanya’s divine message. Taking the words “common sense”
right up to the highest level, Shri Bhaktivinode has written:

3. Shri K. Raghunathji’s Vriddha Chanakya – The Maxims of Chanakya
(Family Printing Press, Bombay 1890) was especially helpful.

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