Against Amnesia

This is the centenary year of the publication of Kautilya’s Arthashastra

The manuscript is in a cupboard in the director’s office at the Oriental Research Institute, Mysore

Its pathbreaking discovery, and publication, by Shamashastry altered our view of ancient Indian history

The institute is still not clear how the centenary should be celebrated

Shamashastry’s family fears the event may go unnoticed

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T he Oriental Research Institute (ORI), set up in 1891 by the then maharaja of Mysore, is a magnificent heritage building, blending architectural styles such as Gothic, Corinthian and Romanesque, and housing nearly 60,000 palm-leaf manuscripts from antiquity. What brought fame to the institute, however, was the discovery among them of Kautilya’s Arthashastra some 100 years ago. A manuscript of the treatise on politics and...