Comparing ancient societies allows us to observe the variety of relationships that prevailed between states — in different forms and at different scales — and their complex legal environments. This chapter explores five dimensions of this relationship. First, we examine the capacity of law to shape state power. While constitutional law, strictly speaking, was comparatively rare in the ancient world, we can yet observe various ways in which law, law-like practices and other cultural norms operated collectively to both empower and constrain the state. The second and third parts of the chapter look at the inverse relationship: state power over law and legal practice in the form of legislative powers and jurisdiction, respectively. In the fourth part, we turn from ideational aspects of state law to the structure of state legal systems themselves, particularly in the context of private or non-state legal practices. Here we focus on those domains of law in which the state was most intimately engaged, what was left to non-state actors and the engagements between both across a sometimes indistinct boundary. The final part of the chapter explores the role of law in legitimizing state power.

Chapter 4 surveys a wide range of friendly and hostile interstate relations in ancient societies, where war was often the normal state of affairs. Notwithstanding the numerous conflicts, polities tried in the end, through alliances and diplomatic relations, to establish peaceful relations in view of political stability and economic prosperity. The chapter analyses hospitality rules regarding foreigners, treaties between polities and the establishment of diplomatic relations, which emerged as an international system in the ancient Near East during the mid-fourteenth century bce. An alternative to diplomacy in conflict management, typical of the Greek world, was arbitration and mediation with the help of a third party. In a final section, the chapter outlines how states, when diplomacy failed, started a war procedurally. In conclusion, the chapter argues that, in the absence of an international court, the enforcement of diplomatic rules and treaties was in many ancient societies ensured by the supranational authority of the gods.

This chapter begins the text-critical study at the heart of the book. It analyzes the relationship between two different and redundant types of text-segments in the extant text, chapters (ādhyāyas) and topics (prakaraṇas). The chapters are shown to have been added at a later time. So, too, the verses that conclude each of these chapters in the extant text are shown to have been added along with the chapter segments. This chapter goes on to argue that all, or nearly all, of the verses in the text are later additions. Other additions made at the end of certain chapters are identified.

The conclusions of the last two chapters are placed here in the context of South Asian history more generally. In particular, this chapter concludes that the tradition of statecraft existed for centuries without any major influence from orthodox Brāhmaṇical theology, but that sometime in the early centuries of the Common Era this changed. The Arthaśāstra vividly captures this shift. The transformation of South Asian political thought is then mapped briefly in other areas and placed in context of the "Brāhmaṇical revival" of the second-fourth centuries CE and the onset of the "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" in the third century CE. The chapter concludes by arguing that changes in the statecraft tradition at the same time strongly suggest major cultural shifts in the period that brought Brāhmaṇical orthodoxy into the halls of power and centers of culture in the period.

An exploration of a formal feature in the Arthaśāstra called "citation" (apadeśa), in which various authorities on statecraft are cited. These citations are usually presented in the form of dialogic exchanges, and the triumphant position as attributed to Kauṭilya, the individual to whom the text is ascribed in two (late) verses. This chapter shows that, like the chapters and verses, the citations are also a later addition dating to the same redaction of the text. Finally, this chapter argues that "Kauṭilya" must be the name not of the original composer of the text, but of the redactor who brought it to its present form.

This chapter concludes the text-critical portion of the study, exploring the thematic structure of the entire text. This analysis proves that the largest text-segments in the extant Arthaśāstra, called "books" (adhikaraṇas), were also added during the same redaction that introduced the chapters, verses, and citations. This allows for the identification of yet further parts of the text that must have been added at that time and a critical estimate of the extent of the original treatise.

In this chapter, the political theology of varṇāśramadharma is reintroduced. It is demonstrated that nearly all references to varṇāśramadharma and all references to dharma as a power standing above the king were introduced during the redaction of the text in the third century BCE. The various aspects of varṇāśramadharma that are found in the extant Arthaśāstra are explored in detail. Nearly all are linked to the work of the redactor. The addition of varṇāśramadharma creates a disonnance in the extant text, and the curiously hybrid character of its resulting political theory is explored.

This chapter explores the political philosophy of the original text, which was probably called the Daṇḍanīti. It shows that the original composition was characterized by a thoroughly empirical and pragmatic approach to politics. The statecraft tradition was devoted entirely to the political success of the king, and the only constraints recognized on his sovereign power are those arising from material conditions and practical circumstances. There is no conception in the original text that unseen mechanisms, such as the sacred law of dharma, had any effect on the development of successful state policy. Nor is the statecraft tradition guided by any "secular values" such as liberty, rights, or justice. Its focus is on discrete strategies that lead to the success of the king.

Introduces the dominant paradigm that the sovereign power of kings was limited by the sacred law of dharma in ancient India. Explores the difficulties in analyzing this relationship due to the systematic overdetermination of religion in the reconstruction of India's past. Introduces and analyzes the political theology of varṇāśramadharma, "The Sacred Law of the Social Classes and Modes of Life," in which dharma's supremacy over the king's political power is encoded. Shows that the Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya is uniquely positioned to examine religion and politics and investigate the salience of varṇāśramadharma to politics in the period. Introduces higher textual criticism and explains the method of the study, which is to establish what material was original to the text and what was added later and to use that distinction to demonstrate the original independence of the statecraft tradition from varṇāśramadharma.