Chanakya (Kautilya) · Politics

The Four Expedients and the Sixfold Policy

Kautilya&rsquo;s toolkit of statecraft: the four <em>upayas</em> or expedients (conciliation, gifts, dissension, force) and the <em>shadgunya</em> or sixfold policy (peace, war, neutrality, marching, alliance, and double-dealing) - foreign policy reduced to a calculated method chosen by the cold arithmetic of relative power.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned the four expedients - sama (conciliation), dana (gifts), bheda (sowing dissension), danda (force) - and the sixfold policy (peace, war, neutrality, marching, alliance, double policy), chosen according to relative strength. Explain how this makes statecraft a calculated method.

Leads to Sun Tzu.

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