Acharya Chanakya is one of the most remembered and awesome personalities of the ancient India whose contribution to the field of economics and statecraft are looked with wonder even today. He authored two great works namely Arthashastra ( a treatise on statecraft, economic policy, and military strategy) and Nitishastra (Known as Chanakya Niti, features his views on the principles that govern society and the ideal way of life).

Chanakya, who is known to be a man of great tactics indeed made great contributions and was instrumental in changing the course of Indian history. He saw the threat of foreign invaders way before anyone did anything about it. He was the mastermind behind the first Mauryan emperor Chandragupta’s rise to power at a young age.

Here are the clever tactics by Chanakya that led to a ‘Unified India’.

He was the man responsible for creating the first biggest Indian empire

After Chanakya finished his education at Takshashila, Sakatala, an unhappy royal minister, introduced Chanakya to the King Dhana Nanda of Nanda kingdom, knowing that Chanakya would not be treated well in the court. The King Dhana Nanda insults Chanakya, prompting Chanakya to swear revenge and destroy the Nanda Empire.

Insulted at the court, Chanakya untied his sikha (the brahmin’s hair that is always tied) and swore that he would not tie it back till he destroyed the Nanda kingdom.

1. Chanakya cleverly escaped the cruel king’s clutches with a clever tactic.

After he announced to destroy the Nanda Kingdom, and left the court in fury, the king ordered his capture. Chanakya disguised himself as a woman and escaped the city and the clutches of the evil king.

2. Chanakya finds Chandragupta Maurya and trains him to bring down the Nanda Empire

Humiliated by Dhana Nanda, Chanakya turns adversity into strength and challenge into an opportunity. Chanakya once saw Chandragupta leading a band of local youth and was highly impressed. He picked Chandragupta as the leader of the anti-Nanda revolt. He taught him everything he knew about politics, economics and warfare. Chanakya groomed Chandragupta to be a good leader, instilling qualities of humility and good governance.

Through clever diplomatic maneuvers and wise confrontations, he choreographed young Chandragupta’s rise as the founder of the Maurya Empire, the first of its kind in power and territorial extent.

3. Chanakya with the help of Chandragupta protects India.

King Ambhi, the ruler of Takshashila, had allied with the invader Alexander the Great to defeat Parvataka. Chanakya and Chandragupta gathered a band of people discontented with Ambhi’s rule and formed an alliance with Parvataka to defeat the Nanda king. Their initial attempts at conquering Magadha were unsuccessful.

Once, Chanakya came across a mother scolding her child for burning himself by eating from the middle of a bowl of porridge rather than the cooler edge. Chanakya realized his initial strategic error: he was attacking Magadha, the center of the Nanda territory. He then changed his strategy and focused on capturing the areas located at the peripheries of the Nanda Empire. Finally, he defeated the last Nanda king and established a new empire with Chandragupta Maurya as the emperor.

4. Chanakya directed Chandragupta to re-conquer the rest of India from the Greeks

Chandragupta had a massive army. Greek philosophers, who recorded history, pegged the number to 600,000 – far more than Dhanananda’s, when he was the king.

Seleucus, who was Alexander’s successor, ceded a lot of territory in the Northwest.

Chanakya and Chandragupta recaptured the territory that belonged to India.

5. Chanakya devised a clever tactic to keep the Greeks out and achieve unified India

Chanakya desired a unified India and not a large India. He knew that even though Chandragupta conquered a lot of Indian Territory back, he didn’t want Chandragupta to become a conqueror. So he devised a plan where he arranged Chandragupta’s marriage to Seleucus’s daughter. Thus, finally, Seleucus wouldn’t attack and was effectively neutralized.

6. Chanakya took steps to ensure that India stays unified forever.

Chanakya also had foresight. He knew that one day Chandragupta would cease to rule and someone less able will sit on the throne. He decided to write a treatise on  good leadership that we know today as – Arthashastra.

He did this so that future kings might read and learn and keep his vision of a unified India alive long after even he is gone.

7. Chanakya used to add little amount of poison in Chandragupta’s food daily.

As Chanakya was loyal to the king and the kingdom, he sometimes over-extended this commitment. Chanakya would add very small doses of poison to Chandragupta Maurya’s meal every day to make him strong and immune even to the worst poison so that he shall not be poisoned by his enemies or conspirators since poisoning was so ridiculously common in those days. As, at the end, Chandragupta Maurya died of natural causes, it is right to say that Chanakya’s tactic worked successfully.

This technique is called Mithridatism, and many zookeepers in Australia still successfully use this technique.

8. Chanakya cleverly saved Bindusara, son of Chandra Gupta

Unaware, Chandragupta once fed some of his food to his queen, Durdhara, who was seven days away from delivery. The queen, not immune to the poison, collapsed and died within a few minutes. In order to save the heir to the throne, Chanakya, therefore, cut open the womb of the mother to save the baby and extracted the foetus just as she died.

Ultimately, this act of Chanakya followed his duty towards the empire and as a measure to save Bindusara, who was to be the king of the empire. The baby was named Bindusara because he was touched by a drop (bindu) of blood having poison.

9. Chanakya also possibly devised the assassins called Vishkanyas (vish – poison; kanya – girl)

According to one of the stories, Chanakya supposedly raised an army of young girls known as ‘vishakanyas’, which he used very effectively against his enemies. These girls were given a small amount of poison every day from childhood till puberty to make them immune from poison. When they used to reach a right age, Chanakya used to use them to lure and kill his enemies as even a kiss of these girls was highly venomous. Having sex with these women would result in instant death.

Although, no direct evidence links it to Chanakya, it is very much possible that it has he who devised this wicked assassination technique.

In that way, Chanakya was a true patriot who secured our sovereignty when no one else wanted to. Acharya Chanakya was undoubtedly a great economist and revolutionary. His works of wisdom are more than 2000 years old, still many of his teachings are relevant and useful in today’s world.