Shukranitisara: A Political Economy Text at the Cusp of Indian Kingdoms and Colonial Rule (Revised as on 15/03/3021)

Satish Y. Deodhar

IIMA Working Papers from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department

Abstract: Shukracharya’s treatise on political economy has been referred to in many ancient Indian texts such as Arthashastra, Buddhacharitam and Mahabharata. However, that treatise has been lost. A text titled Shukranitisara was brought to light in the nineteenth century. Written no later than the early part of the nineteenth century, the text has been written at the cusp of decline of the Indian kingdoms and entry of the colonial powers. The text is unique in that it seems to synthesize ancient Sanskrit writings as well as early regulations of East India Company. While a Sanskrit to English translation of the document exits and a few have also written about this text from the perspective of political science, nothing has been written from the perspective of economic policies. This is an effort to capture the economic aspects of the treatise. Among the four purusharthas or the life objectives, while Arthashastra had given primacy to artha or material wealth, Shukranitisara considers dharmic or ethical conduct as foremost for the economic decisions of the state and the householder. Among other things, the treatise addresses issues of governance, breadth of vocations and sciences, public finance, prices, markets, contracts, labour relations, and advice to a householder. If some of the policies mentioned in Shukranitisara are detailed and unique as compared to Arthashastra, some other are similar to the early regulations of the East India Company. Some of the policy advices from the text remain relevant even for today.

Date: 2020-08-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.iima.ac.in/sites/default/files/rnpfiles/18274807782020-08-02.pdf English Version (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iim:iimawp:14632

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IIMA Working Papers from Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, Research and Publication Department Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().