| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This is cynical and unscrupulous behaviour. Here, in a widely admired ancient Indian text on the techniques of government and administration, the king is recommended to employ a female secret agent in the guise of a mendicant, a wandering nun ostensibly wedded to spiritual ideals of poverty and asceticism. Without regard for the honour of the ascetic calling, for the possible innocence of the suspect's wife, or for the principle that a suspected miscreant deserves a fair public hearing, the secret agent is authorised to abuse the trust inspired by her robes or by her apparent skill with magical potions (which may well be an illusion created by trickery, as other passages in the text clearly sanction), and to make herself the instrument of a summary execution.
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