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Chanakya

चाणक्य

Say it CHAA-nuk-yuh

Meaning: Name of the minister of Chandragupta Monier-Williams, p. 392
Say it: CHAA-nuk-yuh
Written: चाणक्य
Other spellings: Chanakaya
First sound: चा · Meen rashi

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Chanakya

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Chanakya meaning

Chanakya (चाणक्य) is a Hindu boy's name of Sanskrit origin. By its first sound, चा, it is a Meen rashi name (Revati nakshatra) in the North Indian table.

Name of the minister of Chandragupta

Chanakya (चाणक्य) is the name of the minister of Candragupta Maurya, founder of the Mauryan empire in the late fourth century BCE. Monier-Williams records cāṇakya as that minister's name and credits him with overthrowing the Nanda dynasty; he is also known as Kauṭilya. Tradition makes him the author of the Arthaśāstra, a Sanskrit manual of statecraft that covers how a ruler should manage the economy, choose ministers, levy taxes, wage war and run a network of spies, though scholars doubt that the whole text dates from his time. He is also the hero of the later Sanskrit play Mudrārākṣasa, which dramatises his intrigues. Name lists give Chanakya simply as the statesman's name, in line with the dictionary.

Source: Monier-Williams, Sanskrit–English Dictionary (1899), p. 392 · entry cāṇakya · See the entry · checked 25 Oct 2026

References: Monier-Williams, cāṇakya, p. 392 · Britannica, Chanakya · Britannica, Mudrarakshasa