Shivaji and His Times c19.s6.3

c19.s6.3

In the vast Gangetic valley and the wide *Desh* country rolling eastwards through the Deccan, Nature has fixed no boundary to States. Their size changes with daily changes in their strength as compared with their neighbours’. There can be no stable equilibrium among them for more than a generation. Each has to push the others as much for self-defence as for aggression. Each must be armed and ready to invade the others, if it does not wish to be invaded and absorbed by them. Where friction with neighbours is the normal state of things, a huge armed force, sleepless vigilance, and readiness to strike the first blow are the necessary conditions of the very existence of a kingdom. The evil could be remedied only by the establishment of a universal empire throughout the country from sea to sea.