When we hear “the wittiest people in indian history and Mythology” the first person that comes to mind is Chanakya. He is known for writing ‘Arthashastra’ a treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy. The ideas of Arthashastra are reflected in many literatures and are taught to a lot of management students by the Indian institutes.
He has many clever feats attributed to him.So Let’s have a look at the intellectual feats by Chanakya-
1. Persistence
Chanakya had sworn to destroy Dhana Nanda, the king of Magadha, and for that, he had groomed Chandragupt for years. But their first attempt at taking the Magadh Capital failed and they had to spend some time underground.
Once, when they were being chased by the Nanda’s guards, Chanakya asked Chandragupt to dive in a lake and he himself took the disguise of a meditating ascetic. When the guard came and asked this ascetic if he had seen Chandragupt, he pointed towards the lake. Now, this seems counter-intuitive but as the guard removed his armour and weapons to dive in the lake, Chanakya took his sword and killed the Guard.
2. Comprehend and Grasp
It is said that during their times of hiding, they overheard a mother scolding her child who was trying to drink daliya from the centre of the bowl. She said “Don’t be like Chandragupt! Start to drink from the edges and not directly from the centre!”. This made them realize that they shouldn’t try to attack the Capital directly but start breaking the Empire from the edges! With this new strategy, Chanakya & Chandragupta started targeting Magadh’s territorial regions.
In case of one such town, while they had laid siege at its wall, Chanakya went in disguised as a Sadhu and convinced the people there that the siege was a result of bad omen brought about by idols of gods in one of the town temples. The people, believing him, removed those idols. Chanakya signalled Chandragupt to lift the siege. This made the townspeople believe that this had happened because of the removal of idols and they started celebrating. This also slackened their defence. Seizing this opportunity, Chandragupt was signalled to make a surprise attack and the town was taken.
3. Presence of mind
Perhaps the wittiest stories about Chanakya come from a drama written much later than Chanakya’s time, named ‘Mudrarakshas’. It is a narrative focussing heavily of spying and counter-spying, strategizing and counter-strategizing between Chanakya and Rakshasa - the two chief advisors of rival kings Chandragupta and Dhana Nand.
Chanakya had made an alliance with a Himalayan king named Parvata, on terms that half of the conquered kingdom would be his. But later, when Nandas were defeated, he became an obstruction. Dhana Nanda’s Prime Minister had managed to escape Pataliputra after the defeat of his master and started to devise schemes to kill Chandragupt. In one such trick, he sent a Vish-Kanya to assassinate Chandragupta. Chanakya saw an opportunity in this and had this girl assassinate Parvata instead. The blame went to Rakshasa, and Chanakya hit two marks in one stone.
4. Enlighted
After Parvata’s death, his brother Vairodhaka became the ruler of his kingdom. Now he was the new thorn in the flesh. To remove him, Chanakya used the chief architect of Pataliputra, who was unhappy with fall of Nandas and was in Rakshasa’s team. Chanakya asked this architect to build an arch for Chandragupta's procession to celebrate his victory. Chanakya anticipated that he would make the arch in such a way that it would fall on Chandragupt when he was to pass under it. So He invited Vairodhaka to lead the procession on Chandragupta's elephant and surrounded by Chandragupt’s guards. He had also scheduled the procession to be held at midnight so that conspirators should fail to see who exactly was passing under the arch. As expected, the plot killed Vairodhaka, and again, Rakshasa was blamed for it.
5. Proficient
Rakshasa too, now an enemy of Chandragupta and Malayaketu both was in a very pitiful situation. He escaped into incognito. Chanakya's spies tracked him down. Chanakya’s agent, disguised as a friend of Chandanadasa, told Rakshasa that Chandanadasa was about to be executed for refusing to reveal the location of Rakshasa's family. On hearing this, Rakshasa rushed to Pataliputra and surrendered himself and requested to save the life of his loyal friend Chandanadasa. Chanakya, pleased with his loyalty to Chandanadasa, offered him clemency and the post of the prime minister of Chandragupta. Rakshasa agreed & Chanakya retired having secured the Magadh from all possible dangers.
Also, using the trusted resources live Arthashastra, Mudrarakshas, Parishishtaparva; we tried to portray the animated story of Chandragupta that you have seen above. If you like it then you should definitely check out our youtube channel Glimpses for more such amazing stories.
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