Public Administration in Ancient India c19.9

c19.9

In the heroic age of Indian history of which accounts are preserved in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata, the fame of a great warrior was much coveted by powerful monarchs, and their ambition was to be acknowledged paramount sovereign by the neighbouring rulers. Jarāsandha, King of Magadha, is described in the Mahābhārata as having, with the assistance of Sisupāla, King of Chedi, who acted as his generalissimo, subjugated almost all the Kings of Middle India. He was a wicked man, and so when he was preparing to declare himself Emperor, the Pāndavas were persuaded by the other Kings to declare war against him in which Jarāsandha was killed.² Then King Yudhishthira’s brothers set out, each at the head of a large army, on a Digvijaya, or conquest of the four quarters. They succeeded in defeating all the brave monarchs of Northern India, and compelled them to acknowledge Yudhishthira as their paramount sovereign and to pay tribute to him. But the acquisition of territory was not that great King’s object. As the poet Bāna Bhatta puts it: