Chanakya and his views about women

Chanakya was a famous Indian philosopher who was responsible for the overthrow of the last ruler of the Nanda dynasty and the start of the Maurya dynasty. He played a very important part in the establishment, growth, and preservation of the Maurya Empire. He was a teacher and mentor to the first Maurya emperor Chandragupta. He was a man of great tactics who made great contributions and was instrumental in changing the course of Indian history. It is said that Chanakya had been personally offended by King Nanda and he had vowed to keep his long sikha (ponytail) unknotted until he saw to the demise of the contemptuous ruler and his drunken princes. Chanakya helped Chandragupta in raising a large army and defeating King Nanda thereby fulfilling his vow. He roughly lived between the periods 350-275 BC. He was also known as Kautilya and Vishnu Gupta. Chanakya functioned as Chandragupta's counselor and advised him on many matters related to the state. A treatise on the science of politics "Arthashastra' is the most famous work of Chanakya. He is considered a pioneer of the field of economics and political science. He is considered one of the great teachers, thinkers, and diplomats. His intellectual genius commanded a lot of adulation and respect during his time and subsequent years. Later on, people even tried to attribute authorship of several works dealing with various subjects ranging from sex (Kamasutra), to astronomy and mathematics to him, but only "Arthashastra" and "Neetishastra" or "Chanakya Neeti" are the only two books attributed to him.

He is considered a great economist and revolutionary. He was a great strategist of his time, and also considered a ruthless manipulator who was determined to achieve his goals by using the fourfold policy of Conciliation, Donation, Punishment, and Division (साम, दाम, दण्ड, भेद). His works of wisdom are more than 2000 years old, still, many of his teachings are relevant and useful in today's world. There are some arguments about his exact place of birth or date of birth etc. However, these technical details are not that important in the critical study of his works. There are also different opinions about the type of person he was, common beliefs are that he was a crafty politician, a ruthless manipulator who cared little for the means used in the achievement of the ends. Some critics criticized his ways and methods but his work is very widely appreciated and studied even today. The scope and range of his intellect should be self-evident with the variety of subjects he dealt with, in his works, one can not only see the versatility but also notice the accuracy, applicability, and relevance of many of his ideas. Some of his famous quotes are,

If the rulers are righteous, people are righteous. If they are sincere, people are also sincere, like ruler, like people.

Governance is possible only with assistance. A single wheel doesn't move. Hence ministers should be appointed and their counsel listened to.

A ruler with a contiguous territory is a rival. The ruler next to the adjoining one is to be deemed a friend.

One should fight with an inferior enemy, but sign a treaty of peace with one's equal and superior.

The enemy’s actions should be watched.

The weak should seek refuge in the strong.

One who desires speedy accomplishments of tasks does not look to the stars to know his fortune. Rational prognostics are superior to stars in guidance.

Equal attention should be paid to the performance of righteous duty, acquisition of material wealth, and enjoyment of physical pleasures. Any of these if excessively indulged harms itself and the other two.

That mother and that father are enemies who do not give education to their children.

Children should obey their parents and should look after them when they are in difficulty.

The mirage looks like water. An enemy can look like a friend.

In the fight between the dog and pig, the ultimate victory is that of pariah who gets the meat to eat.

A dog on land drags crocodile. A crocodile in water drags dog, the place of fight is important.

Anger is the origin of all legal disputes, murder also results from anger.

One should not argue with intelligent, the foolish, friends, teachers and the beloved.

One who is not calm and collected cannot accomplish the task. 

One should decide first and then commence the task.

Prosperity lasts long for one who acts after proper consideration.

The one who knows the means makes impossible possible.

Those who blindly believe in destiny do not achieve anything. 

He who does not see action is blind.

The one who knows cow's nature gets the milk.

Flawless jobs are rare.

There is no attraction equal to gift.

Sting of words is stronger than fire.

Avoid him who talks sweetly before you but tries to ruin you behind your back, for he is like a pitcher of poison with milk on top.

I can go on quoting him like this, there are many meaningful quotes like the above that are mentioned in his books Arthashastra and Neetishastra. These quotes cover a variety of subjects starting from ethics to economics, politics to philosophy, and sex. After reading his work there is no doubt that he was a visionary and his theories of administration are one of the best. But as V. K Subramanian says “it will be however incorrect to assume that his thinking was not limited in certain aspects, especially his views about women”. This might be because of the social environment of that time and his limited personal experience with women. He lived in a male dominant society where women had limited influence and scope. This must have created a heavy bias in his views about women, some of his views about women are not very kind and not at all relevant in today's world. 

I don't know what made him conclude that women cannot be trusted and have inherent tendencies of low moral character and falsehood. Maybe he wrote these things on purpose to warn about the distraction to his male students, but some views he expressed about women are totally outrageous and insulting to them, for example, have a look at the following lines,

One should not place trust in rivers, animals with horns, armed ones, women, or in ruling families.

Women are fickle-minded. 

Only women could speak falsehood.

Untruthfulness, rashness, guile, stupidity, avarice, uncleanliness, and cruelty are women's seven natural flaws.

Fire, water, women, fool, snake, and the royal family, beware of all these, they can prove fatal.

Courtesy should be learned from princes, the art of conversation from pundits, lying from gamblers, and deceitful ways from women.

Women have hunger two fold, shyness four fold, daring six fold and lust eight fold compared to men. (One wonders by what means Chanakya measures these abstract qualities of women)

According to him, a good woman is one who is pious, expert in household chores, true and faithful to her husband, and who never speaks lies to him. A great intellectual like him also was not free from male male-dominated attitude. He even says "A woman who keeps fast without permission of her husband shortens the life of her husband. She goes to hell and is punished with great horrors of hell." In some places, he even treats women like commodities. "For good days one should save money, women should be protected even if it takes the money saved. But for self-preservation, the money and the women should be sacrificed."

So, one can see that such a learned man also was not free from bias against women, his teachings related to politics, economics, and governance are superb and should be studied in great detail but it's better to totally ignore his views about women. One should not think that as Chanakya was a great politician and thinker all his views are right and his views about women should not be criticized because he was a great administrator of his time. We can see that his views about women are totally biased and must be based on his limited interaction with women in his life and profession. It's also possible that Chanakya may not have spoken or written all these demeaning things about women attributed to him. These texts are very old and many people must have contributed to preserve them and recover them, things get modified, added, or deleted sometimes, we never know, but these views are present in his books which are available today. Maybe it's time to challenge them openly and also put a warning that some of those books contain some derogatory remarks about women, so at least the reader is warned in advance rather than getting shocked while reading them. 

Some readers complained when I criticized some purports from Prabhupad's book "Bhagavad Gita as it is" in which he makes similar comments about women. The problem there was, he passed on his own views as something from the Bhagavad Gita, he used the text of the Gita to propagate his own views about women. The views expressed in Chanakya's book are also his own, he doesn't take shelter from any scripture or try to give any divine angle to his views. That's the difference between these two views, I think readers will understand what I am trying to say here. This is not an attempt to criticize Chanakya as a person or to malign his image. Many times we try to divide the world into either all good or all bad, we try to paint either white or black (this results in an attitude either accepting everything whatever is said or rejecting all) but many times it's a mixture of both good and bad. So let's keep what is good and reject the rest.

I already mentioned in some of my posts that prejudice and bias against women were very strong, it's not less than a miracle that they survived and fought back to reclaim their position in society. Let's not encourage such comments anymore, insulting the spirit of womanhood.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

Links:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanakya

2. Chanakya-Niti-Shastra 

3. Maxims of Chanakya:Kautilya. AbhinavPublications by V. K. Subramanian (1980)

4. Bhagadvad Gita-As it is or As it is NOT-Part-I

5. Bhagadvad Gita-As it is or As it is NOT-Part-II

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]