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Kautilya became a loyal adviser to King Chandragupta Maurya, who belonged to a lower caste, and helped him overthrow the powerful Nanda dynasty of Magadha and found the Maurya Empire in about 321 B.C.
While Chandragupta enjoyed the trappings of kingship at Pataliputra, Kautilya lived a simple life. Chandragupta reigned until about 298 B.C., and is said to have used Kautilya's book, the Arthashastra, as his guide. For centuries the book was lost but was rediscovered in 1905. It helped modern scholars toward a better understanding of the political and economic conditions of India during the Maurya period. It also shed light on various aspects of Indian law and administration.
The Arthashastra deals comprehensively with all aspects of material gain or success and also covers the arts of kingship, effective government, and diplomacy. Among his many recommendations, Kautilya advises that a king should develop an efficient spy network extending to all levels of society and advocates political assassination. He teaches that a king must treat his neighbour as his enemy and his neighbour's neighbour as his ally. Such advice earned Kautilya the name of the Indian Machiavelli, but his political wisdom and sound understanding of human nature caused many experts to compare him to the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle.
Kautilya is also credited with the development of an elaborate tax collection system, and revenue realization process. The whole process is well described in Arthashastra. Kautilya also introduced water tax which was regularly collected wherever the state assisted in providing irrigation. For this purpose he advocated the building of dams. One of Chandragupta's governors was responsible for building a dam across a river near Girnar in western India, resulting in a large lake to supply water to the region. An inscription in the neighborhood mentions the continuous maintenance of this dam for eight hundred years after it was built.
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