War in Ancient India c4.s6.t5.3

c4.s6.t5.3

The economic factor as a cause of war did not loom large in the Indian horizon. In ancient India the State was itself a producing and manufacturing concern. All the key industries were undertaken by the State. There was little or no private enterprise, and the jealous eye of the State watched even this carefully. This system prevented the formation of a capitalist class which has become a potent force in modern politics. Nor were there war-traders in ancient India.¹⁸ The duty of these traders lies in the supply of arms and armaments to the soldiers. Their business thrives only as long as war goes on. So they leave no stone unturned to infuse into the nation the war spirit. In ancient India there was, to our knowledge, no private firm which manufactured weapons of war. Their manufacture and supply were a State monopoly. There was the arsenal which was a department attached to the War Office. There may have been in ancient India an economic motive on the part of the State to build up a sound economic democracy, as in the case of Daṇḍaka, an ancestor of Rāma, king of Ayodhyā, who realised the economic value of the forests to his empire, which was in itself a plain country, and who therefore led an expedition to South India as far as Kiṣkindhā and brought the whole forest territory of the Dakhan under his control. It is difficult to look for economic causes which could have led to wars in ancient India. Society and State were so constituted that no economic distress of an acute kind stared the ancient Indian in the face. Though we can trace overseas trade at the time of the Ṛg Veda, where a certain merchant Bhujja is mentioned as shipwrecked in the course of his commercial adventures, nowhere is there any evidence to show that international trade relations led to the outbreak of war.