[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [War in Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944) › c4.s2 # War in Ancient India c4.s2: Among the Tribes War in Ancient India c4.s2 - **Language:** English ### Among the Tribes ### [c4.s2.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944.c4.s2.1) War is a political institution and a necessary evil. To-day we speak of a new world order and realise that the call to humanise has a precedence even over defence. In spite of this new view which implies the cultivation of international-mindedness, every country is now either at war or on a footing of war-preparedness. This means we are unable to shake off bellicosity completely. ### [c4.s2.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944.c4.s2.2) To the early tribes war was a holy function. Before the actual expedition, they offered sacrifices to the tribal god or goddess. The idea was that god was all-powerful and would protect the soldiers and confer victory in war. The notion was entertained that the gods of these tribes ‘ went in person with them to war—an idea which totemism bequeathed to more advanced stages in religion, for instance, to Peruvian polytheism.’² We learn from the Tamil classic \*Śilappadikāram\* that the Eiynar, perhaps the aborigines of South India, who lived by cattle-lifting and highway robbery, invariably invoked the aid of their goddess Korravai, the deity who led the Eiynar host in all their expeditions with a view to securing for them victory and getting in return sacrifices of both animals and men.³ Bows and arrows were their principal weapons, though the use of spears was not unknown. ### [c4.s2.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944.c4.s2.3) ² F. B. Jevons: \*An Introduction to the History of Religion\* (6th ed.), pp. 108 and 242. ### [c4.s2.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944.c4.s2.4) ³ V. R. R. Dikshitar: \*Śilappadikāram\*, pp. 180-89; ‘ Eiynar ’ in \*Sen Tamil\*, Madura, Vol. XXXI, No. 1. ## Linked texts (1) - [Cilappatikāram](https://indike.org/pramana/in.sangam.five_great_epics.cilappatikaram) — Iḷaṅkō Aṭikaḷ, Tamil --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944.c4.s2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.dikshitar-1944.c4.s2) · Pramāṇa