India as Known to Panini: A Study of the Cultural Material in the Ashtadhyayi c12.s3.7

c12.s3.7

ART OF WAR—The *Āyudhajīvins* were warrior tribes organised on a military basis into *Saṅghas*, occupying mostly *Vāhīka* or the Panjab. Their members were known as *āyudhīya*, 'making a living by the profession of arms' (*Āyudhena jīvati*, IV.4.14). We know that these soldiers put up the stoutest resistance against the Greeks in the fourth century B.C. The Aśvakāyanas of Maśakāvatī and the Mālavas, all *āyudhajīvins*, constituted the finest soldiery, which extorted the admiration of the foreigners. The Kshudrakas and the Mālavas (*Gaṇa-pāṭha* of IV.2.45), we are informed by Kātyā- yana, pooled their military strength in a confederate army called the *Kshaudraka-Mālavī Senā*. The foot-soldiers (*padāti*) of the Sālva country have been especially noted (IV.2.135).