Mital goes on to rebut Trautmann's reliance on the affinity with the smrtis. More recently, Mital concluded that the methods used by Trautmann were inadequate to prove his claims, and therefore 'there exists no direct evidence against Kautilya being the sole author of The Arthashastra, nor evidence that it was not written during the 4th century BCE.'. However, some doubt about Burrow's assertion is due to the end of the treatise, which says: 'This SГЎstra has been made by him who from intolerance (of misrule) quickly rescued the scriptures and the science of weapons and the earth which had passed to the Nanda king.' This supports the more commonly held belief that Kautilya and Chanakya are the same person, given Chanakya's role as mentor to Chandragupta Maurya. Thomas Burrow goes even further and says that Chanakya and Kautilya are actually two different people. Ojha has put forward the view attributing the doctrines of 'ArthaЕ›ДЃstra' to Kautilya or Chanakya and suggests that Vishnugupta is in fact a redactor of the original work. Trautmann believes that Arthashastra is actually a compilation of a number of earlier texts written by various authors, and Chanakya might have been 'one of these authors. This would explain, some affinities with smrtis and references in the ArthaЕ›ДЃstra which would be anachronistic for the 4th century BC. Their explanation is that while the doctrines of the 'ArthaЕ›ДЃstra' may have been written by Chanakya in the 4th century BC, the treatise we know today may have been edited or condensed by another author in the 2nd century AD. Mabbett have hypothesized that the 'ArthaЕ›ДЃstra' is a composition from no earlier than the 2nd century AD, but is clearly based on earlier material. In addition, some of the geographical place names, the reference to the Hunas and the use of the Greek loan words suggest a later date.

Their arguments include the assertion that the state described in Arthasastra is smaller than the Maurya empire, and there is no reference to either the empire or its capital Pataliputra. Some scholars believe that Arthasastra was written at a later stage. Thus, the original identification of Kautilya or Vishnugupta with the Mauryan minister Chanakya would date the ArthaЕ›ДЃstra to the 4th century BCE. Most scholars, though not all, also believe that these names refer to the 4th century BC scholar ChДЃб№‡akya. Many scholars believe that the former was the gotra of the author, while the latter was his personal name. The author of the Arthashastra refers to himself as 'Kautilya', while the last verse mentions the name 'Vishnupgupta'.

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