Chanakya's Biography and Wise Quotes – Worth Learning

CHANAKYA QUOTES
(True Indian Politician, Strategist and Writer, 350 BC-283 BC)


1."A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first."

2."Even if a snake is not poisonous, it should pretend to be venomous."

3."The biggest guru-mantra is: Never share your secrets with anybody. If you cannot keep secret with you, do not expect that other will keep it. ! It will destroy you."

4."There is some self-interest behind every friendship. There is no Friendship without self-interests. This is a bitter truth."

5."Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - WHY am I doing it, WHAT the results might be and WILL I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."

6."As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it."

7."Once you start a working on something, don't be afraid of failure and don't abandon it. People who work sincerely are the happiest."

8."The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all direction."

9."A man is great by deeds, not by birth."

10."Treat your kid like a darling for the first five years. For the next five years, scold them. By the time they turn sixteen, treat them like a friend. Your grown up children are your best friends."

11."Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth."

12."The world's biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman."

13."God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple."

14."Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person."

15."A good wife is one who serves her husband in the morning like a mother does, loves him in the day like a sister does and pleases him like a prostitute in the night".

16."An egoist can be won over by being respected, a crazy person can be won over by allowing him to behave in an insane manner and a wise person can be won over by truth".

17."A human being should strive for four things in life - dharma, money, sex and salvation. A person who hasn't strived for even one of these things has wasted life".

18."A rich man has many friends".

19."A woman is four times as shy, six times as brave and eight times as libidinous as a man".

20. "If you get to learn something even from the worst of creatures, don't hesitate".

21."In a state where the ruler lives like a common man, the citizens live like kings do. And in the state where the ruler lives like a king, the citizens live like beggars do".

22."Jealousy is another name for failure".

23."Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness".


24."One who is in search of knowledge should give up the search of pleasure and the one who is in search of pleasure should give up the search of knowledge".

25."The four greatest enemies of a man are - the father who has taken a loan, the characterless mother, the beautiful but promiscuous wife and the stupid child".

26."God is not present in idols. Your feelings are your god. The soul is your temple."

27. "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourselves!!"



BIRTH AND RISE OF CHANAKYA



Chanakya (True Indian Politician, Strategist and Writer, 350 BC-283 BC) was an adviser and a prime minister to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta (340-293 BC), and architect of his rise to power. Kautilya and Vishnugupta, the names by which the political treatise Artha´shastra identifies its author, are traditionally identified with Chanakya. Some scholars consider Chanakya to be "the pioneer economist of the world" and the "the Indian Machiavelli". Chankya was a professor at Taxila (Taká¹£a´sila (sanskrit word) or Takshashila) University and is widely believed to be responsible for the first Indian empire.


IDENTITY

He is generally called Chanakya, but, in his capacity as author of the Artha´shastra, is generally referred to as Kautilya. The Artha´shastra identifies its author by the name Kautilya, except for one verse which refers to him by the name Vishnugupta. One of the earliest Sanskrit literature to explicitly identify Chanakya with Vishnugupta was Vishnu Sarma's Panchatantra in the 3rd century BC.

K.C. Ojha puts forward the view that the traditional identification of Viṣṇugupta with Kauṭilya was caused by a confusion of editor and originator and suggests that Viṣṇugupta was a redactor of the original work of Kauṭilya. Thomas Burrow goes even further and suggests that Caṇakya and Kauṭilya may have been two different people.

LEGEND

Thomas R. Trautmann lists the following elements as common to different forms of the Chanakya legend:

·Chanakya was born with a complete set of teeth, a sign that he would become king, which is inappropriate for a Brahmin

like Chanakya. Chanakya's teeth were therefore broken and it was prophesied that he will rule through another.

·The Nanda King throws Chanakya out of his court, prompting Chanakya to swear revenge.

·Chanakya searches for one worthy for him to rule through. Chanakya encounters a young Chandragupta Maurya who is a born leader even as a child.

·Chanakya's initial attempt to overthrow Nanda fails, whereupon he comes across a mother scolding her child for burning himself by eating from the middle of a bun or bowl of porridge rather than the cooler edge. Chaṇakya realizes his initial strategic error and, instead of attacking the heart of Nanda territory, slowly chips away at its edges.

·Chanakya betrays his ally the mountain king Parvata.

·Chanakya enlists the services of a fanatical weaver to rid the kingdom of rebels.

·Chanakya's political rivalry with Subandhu leads to his death.

·Chanakya adds poison to the food eaten by Chandragupta, now king, in order to make him immune. Unaware, Chandragupta feeds some of his food to his queen, who is in her ninth month of pregnancy. In order to save the heir to the throne, Chanakya cuts the queen open and extracts the fetus, who is named Bindusara because he was touched by a drop (bindu) of blood or of poison.



DEATH OF CHANAKYA

Chanakya lived to ripe old age and died around 283 BC and was cremated by his grandson/disciple Radhagupta who succeeded Rakshasa Katyayan (great-grand son of Prabuddha Katyayan, who attained Nirvana during the same period as Gautam Budhha ) as Prime Minister of the Maurya Empire and was instrumental in backing Ashoka to the throne. There were three non-traditional belief paths in society those days, Jaina, Buddhist and Ajivaka.

Ajivaka practising Chanakya brought about the downfall of the Jaina Nandas and their coterie of Jaina ministers. (Chanakya 's uncle was Jain, too, and a group of Jains backed Chanakya in his political machinations) . Later on, Chandragupta Maurya took Jainism on abdicating his throne which passed to his Son Bindusara who was an Ajivaka.

Even Ashoka was practising Ajivaka who before accession to throne became Buddhist. Bindusara was born before his father ever became Emperor so the below legend is definitely not true. Ashoka's daughter was married in 265 BC and his son Kunala was 18 years of age in 269 BC which means that even the princes married early, Ashoka was born 310 BC and Bindusara around 330 BC. Bindusara means one who encompasses all that is need to be known.

Later on, Ajivikism which was the official religion of the empire since the Kalinga War (261 BC) and for 14 years afterwards, declined and merged into traditional Hinduism. What has been left are a mish mash of contradictory Buddhist and Jaina legends which are even rejected by Sinhalese chronicles.

According to a legend which is a later jaina invention, while Chanakya served as the Prime Minister of Chandragupta Maurya, he started adding small amounts of poison in Chandragupta's food so that he would get used to it. The aim of this was to prevent the Emperor from being poisoned by enemies. One day the queen, Durdha, shared the food with the Emperor while she was pregnant. Since she was not used to eating poisoned food, she died. Chanakya decided that the baby should not die; hence he cut open the belly of the queen and took out the baby. A drop (bindu in Sanskrit) of poison had passed to the baby's head, and hence Chanakya named him Bindusara. Bindusara would go on to become a great king and to father the greatest Mauryan Emperor since Chandragupta - Asoka.

When Bindusara became a youth, Chandragupta gave up the throne and followed the Jain saint Bhadrabahu to present day Karnataka and settled in a place known as Sravana Belagola. He lived as an ascetic for some years and died of voluntary starvation according to Jain tradition.


Chanakya meanwhile stayed as the Prime Minister of Bindusara. Bindusara also had a minister named Subandhu who did not like Chanakya. One day he told Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the murder of his mother. Bindusara asked the nurses who confirmed this story and he became very angry with Chanakya.


It is said that Chanakya, on hearing that the Emperor was angry with him, thought that anyway he was at the end of his life. He donated all his wealth to the poor, widows and orphans and sat on a dung heap, prepared to die by total abstinence from food and drink. Bindusara meanwhile heard the full story of his birth from the nurses and rushed to beg forgiveness of Chanakya. But Chanakya would not relent. Bindusara went back and vent his fury on Subandhu, who asked for time to beg for forgiveness from Chanakya.

Subandhu, who still hated Chanakya, wanted to make sure that Chanakya did not return to the city. So he arranged for a ceremony of respect, but unnoticed by anyone, slipped a smoldering charcoal ember inside the dung heap. Aided by the wind, the dung heap swiftly caught fire, and the man behind the Mauryan Empire and the author of Arthashastra was burned to death. His main philosophy was "A debt should be paid off till the last penny; An enemy should be destroyed without a trace ". Ironically, Subandhu followed his main philosophy and destroyed him (Chanakya) without a trace.



OTHER VERSIONS

The 9th century AD Sanskrit play by Vishakhadatta, Mudra Rakshasa, is one popular source of Chankaya lore.

A South Indian group of Brahmins in Tamil Nadu called Sholiyar or Chozhiyar, claim that Chanakya was one of them. And a backward community, Nair, from Kerala also claim that Chanakya was one among them. Though all these may sound very improbable considering the vast distance between present day Tamilnadu in the south and Magadha in Bihar, it finds curious echos in Parishista-parvan, where Hemachandra claims that Chankya was a Dramila ("Dramila" is believed to be the root of the word "Dravida" by some scholars). But, a name like "Vishnu Gupta" is very unlikely to be found in southern India then.

Kautilya was educated at Taxila or Takshashila, in present day Pakistan. The new states (in present-day Bihar and Uttar Pradesh) by the northern high road of commerce along the base of the Himalayas maintained contact with Takshasilâ and at the eastern end of the northern high road (uttarapatha) was the kingdom of Magadha with its capital city, Pataliputra, now known as Patna. Chanakya's life was connected to these two cities, Pataliputra and Taxila. In his early years he was tutored extensively in the Vedas - Chanakya memorized them completely at a very early age. He was also taught mathematics, geography and science along with religion. Later he travelled to Taxila, where he became a teacher of politics.



Chanakya taught subjects using the best of practical knowledge acquired by the teachers. The age of entering the University was sixteen. The branches of study most sought after around India at that time ranged from law, medicine, warfare and other disciplines. Two of his more famous students were Bhadrabhatt and Purushdutt.



Political turmoil in Western India at that time caused by Greek invasion forced Chanakya to leave the University environment for the city of Pataliputra (presently known as Patna, in the state of Bihar, India), which was ruled by the Nanda king Dhanananda. Although Chanakya initially prospered in his relations with the ruler, being a blunt person he was soon disliked by Dhanananda. This ended with Chanakya being removed from an official position he enjoyed.



According to the Kashmiri version of his legend, Chaṇakya uproots some grass because it had pricked its foot.



WORKS

Three books are attributed to Chanakya: Arthashastra, Nitishastra and Chanakya Niti. The Arthashastra discusses monetary and fiscal policies, welfare, international relations, and war strategies in detail. Many of his nitis or policies have been compiled under the book title Chanakya Niti. Nitishastra is a treatise on the ideal way of life, and shows Chanakya's in depth study of the INDIAN WAY OF LIFE.