The Rashtrakutas and their Times c19.s1.1

c19.s1.1

There was hardly a monarch of our dynasty who had not to undertake extensive military operations either to quell internal rebellions or to carry out ambitious foreign expeditions. The military machine of the Empire must, therefore, have been a very strong and efficient one. It used to inspire terror literally from the Himalayas to the Cape Kamorin and and Kathiawar to Bengal when handled by efficient emperors and generals, and it was through its instrumentality that the Rāṣṭrakūṭas compelled ‘every prince,’ to quote the words of Sulaiman, ‘though master in his own state, to pay homage to themselves¹. The ascendancy of the military was so great that it was reflected even in civil administration; we have seen already how many of the provincial governors, district officers, and city prefects were generals or captains. The incessant wars with foreign powers and the protected feudatories had infused the military spirit in the whole population; there were local militias even in villages² and skirmishes among them were not infrequent.