“THE ELEMENTS OF SOVEREIGNITY”
in: THE KAUTILYA LECTURES
Delivered initially in [date:-336|magadha] at Takṣaśilā, Gandhāra to the following students:
Transcribed later from memory by Śrībhānu for the benefit of the Yavana girl Tara.
Edited and organized at the word of Professor Cāṇakya by the Yavana lady Tara.
Kaṇāda, the preceptor of the Vaiśeṣika (Reductionist) philosophy, says that the study of the Physical Sciences begins with the enumeration of the elements that comprise matter. He lists these elements as being of six types: substances, qualities, activities, generality, particularity and relationship. From this through the methods of perception and inference alone, all other laws of science can be explained.
Similarly, to discover the laws of the science of government, one must list the elements of sovereignty.
Uśanas says that the king is the sovereign. Bhāradvāja says that it is the minister. Viśālākṣa says that it is the country that is sovereign. Parāśara and Kauṇapadanta say that it is the army and the fort – my own preceptor is sympathetic to this stance. Pisuna says that it is the treasury – I too adopted this stance in my early days.
But none of these can be correct. In the game of chess, victory and loss depend entirely on the capture of the king; not so in real wars, for a king too can be sacrificed by a minister to win a war. The replacement or death of a minister is not as great a tragedy as the loss of a country to an enemy. The country alone cannot be sovereign, as we care about who rules it. And as for the army, the fort, the treasury – if any of these were the sole guarantor of sovereignty, the soldier who guarded the treasury doors would be truly powerful.
I will speak, more generally, of how order is established.
The guard of the treasury is loyal to the king because he thinks, “If I steal from the treasury, I will be punished when my theft is exposed by the auditor”, and furthermore, that if he attempts to conspire with the auditor, the auditor will think “The guard may be a spy for the king, this may be a ploy to test my honesty”.
If the guard and the auditor were of one mind, they could unite and conspire to steal the king’s wealth; if all the soldiers of a king were of one mind, they could unite and refuse to work for the king; if the vassals of an emperor were of one mind, they could unite and overthrow the emperor. But divided, they may be ruled.
I shall provide, for the purpose of understanding, other examples of such phenomena as they occur.
Prices are such a phenomena. Sellers, if they were capable of conspiring with each other, could set prices that were as high as they desired; however, if such a conspiracy were attempted, a seller would then think “the other seller may be a traitor, he may reduce his prices slightly one day and take all my clients for himself and increase his revenue manyfold”, and likewise the other seller. Or they may think “the other seller thinks as I do, and if I am capable of betrayal, so is he”. And so even the slightest rumour of dissension breaks the cartel that does not punish its traitors.
Language is such a phenomena. Scythians, if they could all will alike, could speak the Civilized Tongue and consequently speak and think with clarity as we do, and the effects of doing so would be beneficial to their economy. Yet each Scythian may think “If I alone start speaking Civilized Tongue, none of my colleagues would understand me”, and there is thus no cause for any one Scythian to speak the Civilized Tongue, even if there is reason for all Scythians together to do so.
And sovereignty is such a phenomena. Even when a conspiracy against the king is profitable – whether in the treasury, or in the army, or in the court, or by supporting enemy kings, each member must think “this conspiracy may be a ploy by the king to test me, and even if it is not, other members of it may choose to betray me for profit, thus I should betray it for profit first”.
Such is the nature of man: every decision is made by the will of one man, not by many together.
Thus it is a fallacy to make statements like “The rich do such things because it benefits them” or “The Brāhmaṇas do such things because it benefits them”. For while the behaviour of individuals may serve their interests, the behaviour of groups lacking in unity seldom does.
And thus the art of statecraft is the art of making alliances, so that it becomes profitable for each of its members to be loyal to the king, even if it would not have been profitable if they were lacking in unity.
Thus there are seven elements of sovereignty: the king, the minister, the country, the treasury, the army, the fort, and the ally, and the successful exercise of statecraft lies in binding these elements together through the latter element.
“Professor,” asks Apratimaujas, “Would this be a correct summary of your teaching? To exercise governance, it is necessary to have command over a large number of people, for if you have command only over a small number of people, they will have no cause to be loyal to you?”
“Continue under that assumption,” Cāṇakya directs.
“How, then, is an alliance ever defeated, or a new state ever established? It seems to me that in the absence of other allies being loyal, an ally has no cause to be loyal, and the same applies to each of those allies, and so on. It appears to be the same problem as that of teaching Scythians the Civilized Tongue.”
“I will say three things,” says Cāṇakya, “Firstly, kings may not have successfully instituted such a system as would instil loyalty, and such vulnerabilities may be exploited. Second, it is possible to ally with an existing powerful state against another powerful state, or to take loans, so it is not necessarily the case that you start with having no one as your ally. Third, there are methods to create loyalty among large numbers of people at once. But more generally, the question you’re raising is known as the problem of war.”
