War in Ancient India c4.s6.t4.6

c4.s6.t4.6

In the light of such regulations and principles governing the ancient Indian warrior caste, need it be said that the Kṣatriyas, who were often prompted by the instinct of pugnacity, entered blindly upon wars which affected considerably all belligerents? Instead of trying ‘to discount and to control these outbursts of collective pugnacity’, ancient Hindu society encouraged them ‘under a system of civilised legality’. A warrior’s code was based on law and custom, which not only countenanced but also sanctioned such a system as moral and legal. It has been accepted that its operation leads to the development of the higher social life. Speaking of India and China, a well-known psychologist remarks that ‘the bulk of the people are deficient in pugnacious instinct.’³⁸ The remark shows that the learned author has no correct vision of the Hindu social structure. In a society which consisted of four castes, three castes were devoted to peaceful professions, and naturally the bulk of the people could not have been pugnacious. But it needs repetition that with the military group pugilism and pugnacity were rampant. If Hindu society had not subjected itself for long ages to a healthy diversity of functions and assimilation, there would not have been that progressive integration which has marked it for centuries. It would have crumbled to pieces and we should have long ceased to exist as a vital race. But it is this healthy social organisation that has preserved the Hindu nation in spite of frequent foreign invasions and ceaseless internal turmoil. We are told that efforts are being made in the West to replace pugnacity by the emulative impulse. This is only an experiment; and how far this tendency of emulation would supplant the pugnacious element, it is for the future historian to say.