The Rashtrakutas and their Times c21.80

c21.80

The Smriti writers permit the Vaishyas to follow the military profession when in distress. A number of the Deccan guilds of our period were maintaining their own militias, as will be shown in chapter XV; even the Jains were among the martial races of the Deccan during our period, as has been shown in the last chapter. 17th century travellers like Tavernier note that the Vaishyas would rather die than kill the smallest animal and had, therefore, no fighting value.(55) The case, however, was entirely different in the Deccan of our period.