In Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, (Leiden: Brill, 2011, reviewed in BSOAS 76/2, 330–32), Johannes Bronkhorst devoted considerable space to the Arthaśāstra, drawing extensively on the 2009 PhD dissertation of Mark McClish at the University of Texas. With the publication of The Arthaśāstra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on Statecraft, we are presented with the fruits of McClish's research. The book has two parts: a general introduction of over 83 pages, written by Patrick Olivelle, and a translation of sections of the Arthaśāstra by Mark McClish, introduced with useful explanatory and contextualizing paragraphs. This covers pp. 1–156.

If the summary given by Bronkhorst encourages readers to anticipate that the many problems surrounding the compilation, redaction and history of the Arthaśāstra will be addressed in this book, they will be disappointed. McClish's dissertation may indeed have contained the hard philological and text-critical footwork needed to understand the Arthaśāstra, but the present book has not been designed with Indologists in mind. Rather, it is a teaching text for academics who need an up-to-date translation of the Arthaśāstra for their students. The book is admirably suited to this purpose and Patrick Olivelle's introduction is a reassuring sign that the scholarship is sound. The design of the book is commendable, notably pp. lxxii–lxxxii, which give the complete table of contents of the Arthaśāstra with a clear indication (in bold characters) of the translated portions that follow.

Once we have finished being students, however, just how we might use this book to further our study of the Arthaśāstra is a different sort of problem. The book has a short one-page bibliography listing items that are well known. The background scholarship is dealt with summarily in a footnote on p. ix. While I am flattered to find myself mentioned there, readers will find no critical engagement with my treatment of the Arthaśāstra: I can only assume from the general run of the introduction that the authors of the present book do not accept my interpretation. The point here is not whether they agree with me or not – I am content to be shown to be wrong and have this pointed out – but rather that the book does not position itself in the history of the study of the Arthaśāstra. Thus the translations, covering 156 pages, have only 78 footnotes. These consist of short explanations or comments without reference to the further literature. For example, on p. 60 in footnote 41 we read: “The meaning of this expression is unclear. Some think it is some sort of structure built with beams. Why such a structure should be specified is unclear. Commentators take it to be a beam above the post to which the elephant is tied so as to make the tying of the elephant easier. These all seem like guesses.” There is no doubt a great deal of scholarship lurking behind these remarks, but even a specialist will spend much time tracking down the sources. So while a generation of students will no doubt benefit from this new translation, Indologists will probably use the book only to check McClish's understanding of difficult passages in tandem with digital versions of the Sanskrit text, such as that available through the SARIT website.

Given what has been said so far, there is probably little reason to enter into an extended analysis of the introduction, designed as it is for students. It too lacks footnotes, thus when a reference is made on p. xii to Cāṇakya's authorship and the fact that “Prominent scholars have taken the position that the existing tradition should be accepted as historically accurate until it is conclusively disproven”, I am, for one, completely in the dark about who is being referenced. Perhaps it is A. L. Basham whose dogged insistence on a literalist reading single-handedly set back the study of the Arthaśāstra several generations? Anyway, one hopes that students returning from their philosophy lessons will rise in open rebellion against this blatant appeal to authority. There is plenty otherwise to irritate the historian, such as the use of the “classic period” (p. xxvii) and the “Vedic period” (p. xxiii), both unknown to current archaeology and history. The proposed dating of the text (p. xx) rests on slim evidence and slightly faulty numismatics; as always there is an effort to make the text as old as possible. Moreover, there is not much exploration of the tradition to which the text belonged (the purohita?) and thus the historical readers who may have consulted it. This book is certainly a useful step forward when it comes to making the Arthaśāstra accessible and intelligible, but a genuinely historicist reading, buttressed by all that philology and Indology can offer, is awaited.