1] I am not sure that Chanakya “failed to articulate the comprehensive theory of the state…” but I will refrain from commenting until I have read a bit more.

2] The idea that Dharma (or anyone’s ideas of morality) is in some way superior to a system of the **Rule of Law** can be easily questioned

Well, “Dharma” is the “Rule of Law”..I think you missed this post: Understanding “Dharma”

Heh.
Looks like all Indian atheists, “rationalists” and Randians experience a quickening of the pulse and a fluttering of the heart when they come across Charvakas. Though so little is known about them, and hardly any of their writings survive, so they seem to easily become the Rorschach on which one can project anything and everything.

The Greek achievement was to detach philosophy from religion. That was because Plato and Aristotle in their teachings established a rational basis for thought which is impossible without detaching it from religion. This also freed it religion to provide the fertile ground on which scientific ideas was to be planted. Greece could do this because as a democracy not given to the cult of kings but paid the price for turmoil in its political system. I am afraid we had to wait until British rule to blow away the cobs of obscurantism into which Hindu society had sunk.

Sophistry in Greece came to be realised as a clever but low form of debating which enabled manipulators to profit in their litigious legal system. The Hindu legal approach was rather static and traditional in comparison as Hindu customary practices continue to this day.

I no not doubt the genius of Hindu thought but the reality of it is that it impacted very little on the thinking of Hindu society in the way that Western society was transformed by Greek thought. This is precisely the problem we face today in Indian society because it is the lowest form of life that is dominant.

State policy should not be linked in any way with concepts of morality. The idea that Dharma (or anyone’s ideas of morality) is in some way superior to a system of the **Rule of Law** can be easily questioned. As I explain in The Discovery of Freedom (http://discovery.sabhlokcity.com/) at length, while concepts of morality can and should inform state policy (law), the policy (law) must be determined through a complex analysis that is much broader and more general than the concepts of morality as commonly propounded, most importantly that includes the principles of freedom. Plus it should be determined through democratic consent.

I am not draw any direct parallel between Chanakya and Machiavelli but in a sense both considered human nature as a direct part of their analysis and so they can both be thought of as pre-liberals. Both advanced political science or the science of the state. Both came to very similar conclusions about the role of the king and why the king should be good – for pragmatic reasons if nothing else. But both failed to articulate the comprehensive theory of the state from today’s vantage point of knowledge.

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Dear VoP, I had a quick look at the linked article but that doesn’t seem to say anything to say about why India abandoned sceptical thinkers 2500 years ago.

The analysis I am looking for would be primarily a historical analysis, looking at ancient scriptures and debates, and aiming to investigate why India became so badly ossified 2000 years ago with the result that its fertile and independent mind – that preceded the Greek revolution – was soon lost in feeble and meaningless parroting of what had been said or written in the past.

I refer primarily to Charvaka and various early India schools of sceptical philosophy here, not so much to Buddhism and definitely not to Vedanta which (despite what Swami Suddhananada makes it out to be) is not a bastion of critical thinking but a belief system – although quite exceptionally rational in its refusal to accept any story of miracles, for instance.

The article cited does not touch upon these issues.

Regards
Sanjeev

What went wrong?

Some answers can be found in this essay..
http://sankrant.sulekha.com/blog/post/2004/03/are-indians-corrupt.htm