What Would Need to Be True
For the reconciliation to hold, the Arthashastra would need to contain a threshold rule (or rules) that distinguishes the cases — implicit guidance on when survival prioritization is operationally correct and when honor prioritization is operationally correct. Primary-text consultation against Kangle/Trautmann/Olivelle on:
Whether 12.1.16 (yield-and-run) is restricted to the asura case explicitly or applies more broadly
Whether the danda-courage material has its own enemy-type qualifications
Whether the Arthashastra contains material on identity-preservation cases that Pillai does not surface
If the threshold rule is in the primary text and Pillai compressed it away, the collision becomes a clarity issue rather than a substantive contradiction. If the threshold rule is not in the primary text, the Arthashastra itself contains the tension, and the collision points at a genuine unresolved question in Kautilyan strategic doctrine — when does the strategist accept death rather than yield, and what determines the threshold?