Interestingly enough he became politically active after India's defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great, and aided in creating an empire that unified the whole of India, which was unprecedented until then.
Though because of this, Cholas rose into one of the most fascinating empires with cultural influence over all of SE Asia. Even to date, the Thai king coronation ceremony is in Sanskrit, a language foreign to the land.
The geographical area under present day India was never under a single kingdom/government/flag until 1950s. During the Maurya Empire, the present day Kerala, Tamil Nadu and parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were not a part of the empire.
Even when major parts of India was a British colony, some territories were controlled by the French (Pondichery), Portuguese (Goa) and the Nizams.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurya_Empire#/media/File:Maur...
Not so much about Chanakya, but about that period in India, and describes in depth how the history was pieced together.
He barely made it to the border of the largest empire in contemporary India, by geography. Even the parts of current Pakistan he conquered were nowhere near major powers in the subcontinent.
That was as far as he got before his army rebelled and forced him to abandon further conquest.
Nandas would have obliterated Alexander had he dared to face them.
Nandas were obviously familiar with their own terrain, while Macedonians were not.
The battle with Porus, who was ruling a tiny border state had an army at least in the same order of magnitude as Alexander, who was aided by some of the other local rulers.
If Alexander had a hard time wining against Porus, we can simply make some logical assumptions about how he would have fared against a much much superior force, no vapid sable rattling is required.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_campaign_of_Alexander_t...