Acharya Chanakya is one of the most remembered personalities of the ancient India whose contribution to the field of economics and statecraft are looked with wonder even today.  He is assumed to have died around 275 BC and there are unconfirmed legends about his death. Chanakya’s death is clouded with mystery and is not revealed exactly so far despite several efforts by scholars.

However, there are two standpoints to it with the one stating that he starved himself to death and the other stating that he was killed through a clever plot woven around him. However, none of them have been authenticated anywhere.

Death Story 1:

According to one legend, Chanakya retired to the jungle and starved himself to death following the Jain tradition.

Death Story 2

According to another folklore, while Chanakya served as the chief administrator of Chandragupta Maurya, he started adding small amounts of poison in Chandragupta’s food every day so that he would get used to it and to make him strong and immune even to the worst poison. The aim of this was to prevent the Emperor from being poisoned by enemies or conspirators.

Not knowing this, one day the queen, Durdha, partook the food reserved for Chandra Gupta when she was pregnant. Since she was not used to eating poisoned food, she was in pain. Learning this, Chanakya decided to save the heir to the throne and hence he cut open the womb of the queen and took out the baby. A drop (Bindu in Sanskrit) of poison had passed to the baby’s head, and hence, Chanakya named him Bindusara.  In this process, the queen succumbed to death. 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.

When Bindusara became a youth, Chandragupta gave up the throne and followed the Jain saint Bhadrabahu to present day Karnataka and settled in a place known as Shravana Belagola. He lived as an ascetic for some years and died of voluntary starvation according to Jain tradition. Chanakya meanwhile stayed as the administrator of Bindusara.

One day he told Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the murder of his mother. Bindusara asked the nurses who confirmed this story and he became very angry with Chanakya. On hearing that the Emperor was angry with him, Chanakya thought to end his life. He donated all his wealth to the poor, widows and orphans and sat on a dung heap, prepared to die by total abstinence from food and drink. He shortly died thereafter.

Death Story 3

According to another legend mentioned by the Jain writer Hemachandra, Chanakya died as a result of a conspiracy by Subandhu, one of Bindusara’s ministers. Unable to tolerate the rapport that Chanakya enjoyed with Bindusara, Subandhu constructed a terrible plot to create enmity between him and the ruler. Hence, he told Bindusara that Chanakya was responsible for the murder of his mother. This created a severe contempt in Bindusara for Chanakya.

Chanakya was unable to put up with the behavior of Bindusara whom he loved the most. Therefore, he left the palace and decided to starve himself to death. During this time, a nurse who was with Bindusara’s mother Dhurdha, revealed the mystery behind the queen’s death relieving Chanakya from the guilt.

Once Bindusara learned this story from the nurse, he realized the grave mistake he committed by misunderstanding Chanakya. He asked Subandhu to convince Chanakya to give up his plan to kill himself. However, Subandhu instead conducted a ceremony for Chanakya only to burn him alive. It appears that Bindusara killed Subandhu in utter disgust due to his evil plan.

However, the mysterious death of Chanakya is not fully resolved yet.