Page:Indian Journal of Economics Volume 2.djvu/654

 686 BLKBISHNA unanimous in describin he scope of .Arthashasra Hence i will be eviden ha Arthashasra is a ery comprehensive scienc which deals with such impor branches of knowledge as those of public law, politics and political economy; but a perusal of the Arthashas- ira o! Kautilya shows that the latter science was dealt with so far as it was related to the state. Hence the Indian Arthashastra is not identical with modern economics. In fact, political economy seems to be treated as a branch of the art of government. The foregoing conceptions of this science are almost denti- cal with the one given by Adam Smith. "Political economy', he says, "proposes two distinct objects  first to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly, to enable them to pro- vide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for themselves and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public service. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign." The economic science was treated as a branch of' politics by even those immortal writers Aristotle and Plato, and even so late as 1821, James lill declared that "Political economy was to the state what domes- tic economy was to the family" and treaed it as a branch of statesmanship. Thus it appears to be certain that economics as an art was dealt with in Artha- shastra so far'as it was rlated to the state, while books on z taught the cience and art of money- making to the general public by such means as catfie- rearing, agriculture, commerce and usury. Importance of Wealth In the present and the following section we have endeavoured to show what assigned by these eminent supreme Hindus importance was to the so-called "paltry pelf" and its sordid science economics. First