War in Ancient India c10.45

c10.45

In Kauṭalya *Arthaśāstra*²⁴ the admiralty figures as a separate department of the War Office; and this is a striking testimony to the importance attached to it from very early times. In the *Ṛg Veda Saṃhitā* boats and ships are frequently mentioned. The classical example often quoted by every writer on the subject is the naval expedition of Bhūjya who was sent by his father with the ship which had a hundred oars (*aritra*.)²⁵ Being ship-wrecked he was rescued by the twin Aśvins in their boat. The writer in the Cambridge History of India, however, is of opinion that the Vedic Indians did not take part in ocean shipping, and bases his conclusion on the negative evidence that the rudder, anchor and sail are not mentioned in the Vedas.²⁶ This *argumentum silentii* does not however prove anything. Though it cannot be asserted from the meagre evidence available that naval battles were fought in the Vedic period, yet the foreign trade of India from prehistoric times cannot for a moment be doubted. This extensive commercial intercourse of India with foreign countries, including the Mediterranean lands and the African continent,²⁷ naturally led to piracy on the waters. There then arose the need for the protection of sea-borne trade, and we are told that " at the outset the merchant vessels of India carried a small body of trained archers armed with bows and arrows to repulse the attacks of the pirates, but later they employed guns, cannon and other more deadly weapons of warfare with a few wonderful and delusive contrivances."²⁸ These were probably the beginnings of the ancient Indian navy.