New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- Two thousand years before Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand transformed economic thought, an Indian Brahmin with a razor-sharp mind was quietly drawing up the blueprint for a political economy that would support a kingdom.

That man, born in Pataliputra, was Kautilya, more commonly remembered as Chanakya.

History has dubbed him the original kingmaker, the strategist who powered the rise of Chandragupta Maurya. But to those who have read his text, Arthashastra, he was a proto-economist and a policy wonk with a startlingly modern outlook.

Two thousand years before Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand transformed economic thought, an Indian Brahmin with a razor-sharp mind was quietly drawing up the bluepri...