War in Ancient India c11.s1.4

c11.s1.4

A writer in the *Cambridge History of India* remarks: ‘It is in foreign policy that we find the culmination of the Indian genius for systematic exposition, the principles being those of Machiavelli. Policy has not large aims: the mainspring is the rivalry of the kings and the much applauded desire for glory and Imperial rule’. These statements are rather misleading. In the first place, it was not Machiavellian as has been already pointed out. Secondly, the idea that the policy was imbued not with larger aims but only with rivalry and glory, cannot be accepted. The ideal was not mundane. It was something higher and nobler and consequently spiritual. Rapson says: “It was always regarded as a legitimate object of the ambition of every king to aim at the position of Cakravartin or of supreme monarch.” This ambition was legitimate and had no narrow outlook about it. It was not the exclusive privilege of this or that sovereign, but a fruit to be sought after by every one of the monarchs comprising the maṇḍala. If the king is not actuated by this idea, he falls short of an ideal king according to the Hindu Rājadharma. Samudragupta, for instance, was full of this ideal. His conquests were not waged for the sake of mere territorial ambition, but to attain the larger end, namely, the realisation of Indrahood. As has been already said, Heaven is the ultimate goal and its attainment necessitates the conquest of this earth by the Kṣatriya. In a word, conquest is a means to a greater end, namely, happiness and glory in Heaven.