Many thousands of undiscovered manuscripts, invaluable to India's literary legacy, are rotting away as we speak. There is very little financial support for archeology or manuscriptology in India. So much has been lost already. And, of the estimated known 40 million manuscripts, no one is being trained to read and translate them! Opportunity for philanthropy?<p><a href="https://www.dailyo.in/arts/ancient-manuscripts-india-sanskrit-namami/story/1/17406.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.dailyo.in/arts/ancient-manuscripts-india-sanskri...</a><p><a href="https://www.newindianexpress.com/thinkedu2020/2020/jan/08/hidden-treasure-95-of-indias-ancient-manuscripts-yet-to-be-translated-says-bibek-debroy-2086890.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.newindianexpress.com/thinkedu2020/2020/jan/08/hi...</a><p><a href="https://namami.gov.in/manuscriptology-polygraphy" rel="nofollow">https://namami.gov.in/manuscriptology-polygraphy</a>
Other than his works, he was the prime minister in Maurya empire, credited with its rise. Maurya empire is considered to be one of the greatest Indian empires along with Guptas(known for progress in science, medicine) and Cholas(mercantile empire crossing oceans). It spread west upto present day Afghanistan at its peak. Maurya king Ashoka is quite famous because of this: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka#Kalinga_war_and_conversion_to_Buddhism" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashoka#Kalinga_war_and_convers...</a>
It's nice to see some Asian history for a change. In the west, it seems as we only have an interest in the historical narratives of Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Europe. Dense civilizations existed in South and East Asian stretching back thousands of years and our history classes and popular culture barely touch on them.<p>I'd love to see more pop culture(games, movies, etc) explore the history of what is now India, Thailand, Vietnam, etc.
Socrates reportedly met an Indian philosopher in Athens, according to Aristoxenus, student of Aristotle [1].<p>Some of Ashoka's pillars had Greek inscriptions [2]<p>Greece and India used to share borders. A Greek king became Buddhist. [2]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249942188_Some_Remarks_about_a_Meeting_between_Socrates_and_an_Indian_Aristoxenus'_fragment_53" rel="nofollow">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249942188_Some_Rema...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism</a>
For people interested in actually <i>studying</i> Chanakya's writings (their sweep is magisterial), the following are recommended;<p>* The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra by Roger Boesche - A very good (and short) overview of the Arthashastra.<p>* King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya's Arthashastra translated by Patrick Olivelle - A good modern translation of the complete Arthashastra.<p>* Kautilya's Arthashastra: An Intellectual Portrait: The Classical Roots of Modern Politics in India by Subrata K. Mitra and Michael Liebic - A scholarly and challenging work on the relevance and applications of the Arthashastra.
TIL: That Chanakya's work was lost to history and was rediscovered in 1909. And the manuscripts that contained the treatise was donated to the scholars by a pandit from my home town (Tanjore or the modern Thanjavur). That drastically alters my sense of my own history. We knew of the big temple[1] circa 1000AD and all the scholarly thinking that went on around that time and the town has several UNESCO World Heritage sites from that period. But to house a script from circa 200 BCE, that is new to me.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihadisvara_Temple,_Thanjavur" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brihadisvara_Temple,_Thanjavur</a>
Casteism is an Organized mafia operating in South Asia since 700 BC <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda</a> which is evident from the fact that 50% Ministers in Modi Cabinet are Brahmin while they are just 3% in India;<p><a href="https://www.quora.com/Which-caste-is-looting-India/answers/220938900" rel="nofollow">https://www.quora.com/Which-caste-is-looting-India/answers/2...</a>