Public Administration in Ancient India c19.51

c19.51

One thing is worthy of notice in this connection, namely, the abstention on the part of the fighters from inflicting harm on non-combatants. The invading soldiers never destroyed the crops, nor devastated the enemy’s country. So far as practicable, battle-fields were selected in remote and uninhabited parts of the enemy’s territory.² To this fact Megasthenes bears eloquent testimony. Says he: “Whereas among other nations it is usual, in the contests of war, to ravage the soil, and then to reduce it to an uncultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighbourhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger for the combatants on either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other, but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain quite unmolested. Besides, they neither ravage an enemy’s land with fire nor cut down its trees.” 1