Chanakya (Kautilya)
c. 375 BCE–c. 283 BCE · Political Theorist · Takshashila
Chanakya, also known as Kautilya and Vishnugupta, is a figure of ancient Indian political tradition, remembered as the teacher and chief adviser who helped Chandragupta Maurya establish the Maurya Empire and who continued to serve his son Bindusara. Tradition credits him with the Arthashastra, a Sanskrit treatise on statecraft, economics, diplomacy, and warfare, and with the aphoristic Chanakya Niti. He is associated with the ancient learning centre of Takshashila and with the Mauryan capital Pataliputra. No contemporary records survive; his life is known only through later Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu narratives composed centuries afterward, which differ on his origins and deeds.
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Takshashila
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The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Chanakya (Kautilya)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Luminaries & Explorers world
Graeco-Roman world
Egyptian world
Scientists
Jewish world
Mesopotamian world
Rulers world
- Chandragupta Maurya· –297 BCE
- Lysimachus· 360 BCE–281 BCE
- Seleucus I Nicator· 358 BCE–281 BCE
- Alexander the Great· 356 BCE–323 BCE
- Antigonus I Monophthalmus· 382 BCE–301 BCE
- Demetrius I Poliorcetes· 337 BCE–283 BCE
- Bindusara· –273 BCE
- Philip II of Macedon· 382 BCE–336 BCE
- Pyrrhus of Epirus· 319 BCE–272 BCE
- Ashoka the Great· 304 BCE–232 BCE
Works
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