War in Ancient India c11.19

c11.19

By the time when the *Atharva Veda* was composed, the kernel of the *Mahābhārata* and the *Rāmāyaṇa* had come into existence. In these books we find the king gaining more power and influence. War and diplomacy have come to stay. They are no more in their primitive stage, but have become developed institutions. The tribal system has given place to organised communities, a good number of which took a leading part in the great battle between the Pāṇḍavas and the Kauravas.¹² Even in the first parvan of the great epic, the Ādi Parvan, we find a chapter (143) which discloses a stifling atmosphere of court intrigue and currents and cross-currents of negotiation. There is then a discourse on diplomacy by a distinguished diplomat, Kaṇika, perhaps the Kaṇika-Bhāradvāja of the *Arthaśāstra*, to the blind and aged Dhṛtarāṣṭra, jealous of the Pāṇḍavas: