Hindu Administrative Institutions c8.s2.9

c8.s2.9

There is evidence to indicate that the purohita not only followed his monarch to the theatre of war but also took part in the operations on the field. That is to say that if occasion so demanded of him he offered fight by joining the rank and file of the army. Professor Hopkins refers to this in his learned contribution to the *Journal of American Oriental Society*.⁶ Viśvāmitra was the purohita of king Sūdas of the *Rig-Veda Saṃhitā* and took part in the operations of war against him by the allied forces of ten tribes, well-known as the ‘Battle of the Ten Kings’.