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- I have a good collection of books on the topic of "Worldly Wisdom". Most books will span the categories and you have to tease their teachings into the above three buckets. When reading these books always remember that they were written in a specific Context/Time and hence would need reinterpretation in your specific context before application. Also as much as possible go to the original sources/authoritative translations instead of "popular" accounts of the same which are almost always dumbed down and virtually useless. The essence is in understanding the nuances and not the obvious "sound bite".
Here is a partial list in no specific order (lookup their reviews on Amazon/elsewhere on the web for details);
1) The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence by Baltasar Gracian translated by Jeremy Robbins. This book is also available as "The Art of Worldly Wisdom" translated by many others. Of these the one by Christopher Maurer is noteworthy.
2) A Pocket Mirror for Heroes by Baltasar Gracian translated by Christopher Maurer.
3) The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. Of the many translations, the one by Peter Bondanella in Oxford World's Classics is noteworthy.
4) Maxims and Reflections (Ricordi) by Francesco Guicciardini translated by Mario Domandi.
5) The First Great Political Realist: Kautilya and His Arthashastra by Roger Boesche - A very nice summary of the magnum opus "Arthashastra" from Ancient India.
6) King, Governance, and Law in Ancient India: Kautilya's Arthasastra translated and annotated by Patrick Olivelle - A very good and modern translation of a large text.
7) The Essence of Politics (Sanskrit: Nitisara) by Kamandaki translated by Jesse Ross Knutson - A shorter Ancient Indian text in the vein of Arthashastra.
8) The Pancatantra: The Book of India's Folk Wisdom translated by Patrick Olivelle.
9) Tirukkuṟaḷ by Tiruvalluvar (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kural for details) - For a good English translation see the one translated by P.S.Sundaram and published in Penguin Classics.
10) The Art of War by Sun Tzu translated by Ralph D. Sawyer.
11) The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China translated by Ralph D. Sawyer.
12) [The Complete] Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi translated by Kenji Tokitsu.
I have left out the obvious works by Epictetus/Seneca/Cicero/Marcus Aurelius/etc. since they are all well known.
The above is a good representative of the three categories drawn from different cultures and should get you started.
- > Is there a well-regarded complete translation?
It seems for English translations, we can pick between: A: R. Shamasastry (1915), B: R. P. Kangle (1969), C: L.N. Rangarajan (1992) D: Patrick Olivelle (2012) [late edit. looks incomplete]
From my initial reviews of A and B, A misrepresents the original text vastly and B translates the original text using the words that are actually written in it. (I find that an important measure for a translation). Reviews of C indicate that it is incomplete and out of order. Therefore, B seems like the only potentially true translation. You can find it on Amazon[0], Google Books[1], and Digital Library of India[3][4][5].
For more information on how challenging it is to translate this work, check out this 2014 essay by Michael Liebig, Kauṭilya's Arthaśāstra: A Classic Text of Statecraft and an Untapped Political Science Resource. [2] (excerpted below)
0: http://www.amazon.com/Kautiliya-Arthasastra-Vols-Sanskrit-En...
1: https://books.google.co.in/books/about/Kautiliya_Arthasastra...
2: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/17144/2/He...
3: http://www.dli.ernet.in/cgi-bin/metainfo.cgi?&barcode=999999...
4: http://www.dli.ernet.in/cgi-bin/metainfo.cgi?&barcode=999999...
5: https://github.com/cancerian0684/dli-downloader
METHODOLOGICAL PUZZLES AND METHODOLOGICAL/THEORETICAL APPROACHES
The Arthaśāstra's authoritative translations into English (R.P. Kangle) and German (J.J. Meyer) were made by Indologists. Also, the secondary literature on the work comes almost exclusively from the Indologists. 6 The Indological perspective is focused on Sanskrit philology, but with respect to specifically political issues, Indologists are (probably, inevitably so) 'semantic generalists'. Sanskrit philology has made the Arthaśāstra accessible to social science, but the philological meticulousness of Indologists cannot substitute political science terminology – which is the prerequisite for an adequate understanding of Kauṭilyan ideas. The problematic is not merely one of proper translation in terms of political science terminology, but brings up the issue of interpretation in the sense of adequate reconstruction of (latent) ideas or 'complexes of meaning' in the Arthaśāstra and the 'transposition' of such ideas into modern categories.
