What Would Need to Be True
For the reconciliation to hold, Pillai would need to clarify whether the no-prior-opinions principle applies (a) to specific people only, (b) to traditions broadly, (c) to both, or (d) to neither. The text does not specify. Primary-text consultation against Kangle/Trautmann/Olivelle on the specific Sanskrit material Pillai is paraphrasing would help — does the Arthashastra itself draw the first-order/meta-epistemological distinction, or is Pillai compressing two distinct principles from different parts of the text into one numbered list that produces apparent contradiction?
If primary-text consultation shows the distinction is genuine in Kautilya, the reconciliation holds and the collision becomes pedagogical clarity rather than substantive contradiction. If primary-text consultation shows the contradiction is real and Kautilya does not resolve it, the collision points at a genuine internal tension in the Arthashastra's epistemology.