Chanakya (Kautilya) · Politics
The <em>Arthashastra</em>’s vision of the state as an all-seeing administrative apparatus - a vast intelligence network, an army of superintendents regulating trade, taxation, and agriculture, and, taught with unnerving candour, the darker instruments of poison, entrapment, and assassination.
You learned that Kautilya built a state that sees everything: spies in many disguises (recluse, householder, merchant, ascetic, mendicant woman) who even test the loyalty of ministers, superintendents ( adhyakshas ) regulating the whole economy, and a candidly taught machinery of covert operations. Explain how surveil…
Leads to Han Fei.
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