Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

War in Ancient India c4.s6.t7: (7) The Mastery Motive

War in Ancient India c4.s6.t7

Language
English

(7) The Mastery Motive

c4.s6.t7.1

Jealousy brought in its train imperialistic notions of overlordship (ādhipatya) and love of glory. This mental attitude is reflected in several hymns of the *Atharva Veda*. One hymn says:∗

c4.s6.t7.2

∗ W. D. Whitney’s trn.

c4.s6.t7.3

‘Unto our glorious Indra, rich in glory, would we, rendering homage, with glories pay worship; do thou bestow on us royalty quickened by Indra: in thy bestowal here may we be glorious.’
‘Glorious was Indra, glorious was Agni, glorious was Soma born: Glorious, of all existence am I most glorious’. (Bk. vi, 39).
‘Glorious let the bounteous Indra make me: Glorious both earth and heaven here: Glorious let god Savitar make me.’

c4.s6.t7.4

‘As Indra is possessed of glory in heaven and earth, as the waters are possessed of glory in the herbs, so among all the gods may we, among all, be glorious.’ ‘Glorious was Indra, glorious was Agni, glorious was Soma born: Glorious, of all existence am I most glorious.’ (Bk. vi, 58). ‘O ye Aśvins, lords of beauty! Anoint me with the honey of bees, that I may speak brilliant words with the people.’ ‘In me (be) splendour, also glory, also the fatness that belongs to the offering; let Prajāpati fix that in me, as the heaven in the sky.’ (Ibid., 69).

c4.s6.t7.5

The prospect of glory is itself an incentive to deeds of heroism. To quote the *Atharva Veda* again, there is a hymn addressed to Indra thus:

c4.s6.t7.6

‘O Indra, come to my call: this will I do: that hear thou: let these overrunners of Indra’s bring to pass my design: by them may we be equal to heroism.’ (Bk. v, 8.2).

c4.s6.t7.7

The terms empire and imperial sway, as I have explained elsewhere,⁵⁸ do not connote the meaning by which we understand these terms to-day. The Roman Empire meant the gradual extension of Roman citizenship and Roman law and the spread of the Latin tongue. The British Commonwealth means the establishment of British methods of law and order, the use of the English language for purposes of administration, and the development of British democratic institutions. Imperial sway in ancient India meant the active rule of an individual monarch who by his ability and prowess brought to subjection the neighbouring chieftains and other rulers, and proclaimed himself the sole ruler of the earth. This goes by the name of *digvijaya*. It is not necessary that he should conquer all States by the sword. A small State might feel the weight of a conquering king and render obeisance of its own accord. Whether this willing subordination is sincere or feigned, open or veiled, the fact is that it is there. The acknowledgment of overlordship of a certain monarch or the willing acquiescence of lesser powers to a greater power invests the greater power with the halo of imperialism.

c4.s6.t7.8

⁵⁸ *The Mauryan Polity*, pp. 71 ff.

c4.s6.t7.9

The position of subdued or vassal States was that they retained their old methods of administration, their laws and customs, their language and their religion. The visible manifestation of their subordinate capacity lay in periodical payment of tribute and presents, assistance in war, and the absence of separate foreign relations.⁵⁹ Under weaklings the empire broke down and under the powerful it was built up. Need it be said that in any case defence was absolutely essential either to the Imperial power or to the vassal State? According to the *Sangam* classics, each of the respective rulers of the chief Tamil kingdoms, the Cēra, Cōḻa and Pāṇḍya, carried his sword as far north as the Himalayas, and implanted on its lofty heights his respective crest the bow, the tiger, and the fish.

c4.s6.t7.10

⁵⁹ Cp. N. N. Law: *Inter-state Relations in Ancient India*: pp. 62-63 (Calcutta Oriental Series, 1920).

c4.s6.t7.11

In these adventures which were undergone for their glorification, the Tamil kings did not lag behind their northern brethren. The very epithet *Imayavaramban* shows that the limits of the empire under that Emperor extended to the Himalayas in the north. This title was also earned by Ceran Senguṭṭuvan by his meritorious exploits in the north. Names like the Coḷa Pass in the Himalayan slopes, which in very early times connected Nepal and Bhutan with ancient Tibet, give a certain clue to the fact that once our Tamil kings went so far north as the Himalayas and left their indelible marks in those regions.⁶⁰ If in the epic age a Rāma and an Arjuna could come to the extremity of our peninsula, and in the historical period a Candragupta or a Samudragupta could undertake an expedition to this part of our country, nothing could prevent a king of prowess and vast resources like the Cēra king Senguṭṭuvan from carrying his arms to the north. The route lay through the Dakhan plateau, the Kalinga, Malva, and the Ganges. Perhaps it was the ancient Dakṣiṇapatha route known to history from the epoch of the Ṛg Veda Samhitā. These expeditions were prompted by what the psychologists would call the mastery or self-assertive motive. This is clearly illustrated by a hymn of the Atharva Veda. (Bk. iv, 22. 1).

c4.s6.t7.12

⁶⁰ See M. Raghava Iyengar’s article in *Kalaimagal*. Vol. I. pp. 56-63.

c4.s6.t7.13

‘Increase, O Indra, this Kṣatriya for me: make thou this man sole chief of the clans: unman all his enemies: make them subject to him in the contests for pre-eminence.’

c4.s6.t7.14

‘Of lion aspect, do thou devour all the clans: of tiger aspect, do thou beat down the foes: sole chief, having Indra as companion, having conquered, seize thou on the enjoyments of them that play the foe’. (Ibid., 7).

c4.s6.t7.15

Again, the king who became conqueror of all India was entitled to the distinction of being called a Samrāṭ. In the Purāṇic period the great Kārtavīrya Arjuna of the Haihaya clan spread his arms throughout the ancient Indian continent and earned the title of Samrāṭ. The same principle of glory and distinction underlay the performance of the sacrifices, Aśvamedha and Rājasūya, which were intended only for the members of the Kṣatriya community. Sometimes these yajñas were made by a prince in the evening of his life, after he had attained a ripe age when he could no more bear arms effectively and was about to retire to a life of peace and prayer, leaving the responsibilities of the kingdom to his successor, invariably the eldest son. Dāśarathi Rāma and the Pāṇḍava Yudhiṣṭhira engaged in such sacrifices after the historic battles in which they took leading and glorious parts. Coming nearer home, we find Śenguṭṭuvan performing a Vedic sacrifice after his return from the north where he defeated all the northern monarchs.

c4.s6.t7.16

A prominent feature of the Aśvamedha consisted of letting a sacrificial horse roam about the country as it pleased, and it was open to other chieftains either to allow it to go its way, or keep the animal in their territorial limits, which was a signal for claiming superiority and hence preparedness to fight out. Often the horse went unrestrained. But there were cases where jealous kings resented and the resentment led to fighting. Everyone knows the fate which overtook the sixty thousand sons of Sagara in the course of their search for the sacrificial horse. We are told again that the young sons of Rāma—Lava and Kuśa—had the sacrificial animal of Rāma bound, and this led to a great fight. In these cases the army was not certainly maintained for defences but to satisfy the vainglorious temperament of certain monarchs.

c4.s6.t7.17

Their vanity did not end here. It was often nurtured by avidity to attain *Indratvam*. These ancient Kṣatriya monarchs believed very seriously—though this may seem irrational or superstitious—that by performing a hundred Aśvamedha sacrifices, they got the higher status of Indra. The performer became the king of the gods and lord of heaven.

c4.s6.t7.18

In this connection we may quote one or two hymns of the *Atharva Veda* which fairly represent this idea or ideal:

c4.s6.t7.19

‘Now do I adorn this man as superior to his fellow, for attainment of Indra; do thou increase his authority, his great fortune, as the rain the grass’.
‘For him, O Agni and Soma, maintain ye dominion, for him wealth: in the sphere of royalty make ye him superior to his fellow’.
‘Whoever, both related and unrelated, assails us, every such one mayest thou make subject to me, the sacrificer, the soma-presser.’ (Bk. vi, 54).

c4.s6.t7.20

It was an age of crude mythology. To go to heaven and become the lord of heaven was the ruling passion of every monarch. If one Aśvamedha yajña meant an enormous amount of money, time, and energy, it may well be imagined what a hundred Aśvamedhas would cost. No wonder there were perpetual wars, now with one king, now with another. Such religious beliefs and traditions made wars inevitable. The Aśvamedha was certainly an instrument to provoke the feelings of fellow-monarchs, equal, superior, and inferior. The smaller powers acquiesced generally, but the greater powers, to use a modern term, challenged and provoked war. A study of these wars, from a psychological point of view, shows that what is defence to one State is aggression to the other, and vice versa. This sort of imperialism on the part of the ancient Hindu monarchs to become Samrāṭs and their kingdoms to be developed into Sāmrājyas, was of the nature of federal units centring round a dominating emperor⁶¹. The attainment of Ekarājatvam or the sole kingship of all the then known earth, was often attended by the sacrifice of Aśvamedha,⁶² a ceremony performed by an emperor already consecrated to rulership. This bears testimony to ‘the existence of the territorial ideal of a one-State India’ (Cakravarti-kṣetram of Kauṭalya). These kings were called Sārvabhaumas⁶³ and Ekarāṭs.

c4.s6.t7.21

⁶¹ See Jayaswal: *Hindu Polity*. I. p. 137.

c4.s6.t7.22

⁶² *Śat. Br.* XIII, 7.1.

c4.s6.t7.23

⁶³ See Pāṇini, V, 1, 41-2.

c4.s6.t7.24

A hymn of the Atharva Veda is pertinent:

c4.s6.t7.25

‘Chief of Indra, chief of heaven, chief of earth is this man, chief of all existence: do thou be sole chief.’
‘The ocean is the master of the streams: Agni is controller of the earth; the moon is master of the asterisms: do thou be sole chief.
‘Universal ruler art thou of Asuras, summit of human beings: part-sharer of the gods art thou: do thou be sole chief.’63a

c4.s6.t7.26

63a वृषेन्द्रस्य वृषा दिवो वृषा पृथिव्या अयम् । वृषा विश्वस्य भूतस्य त्वमेकवृषो भव ।।

c4.s6.t7.27

Vedic kings aimed at it, and epic rulers realised it. The idea of *ekarāṭ* continued down to Buddhist times and even later. The Jātakas, which are said to belong to the fifth or sixth century B.C., make pointed reference to an all-India empire.⁶⁴ Two centuries later Kauṭalya records the international relations between an Ekarāja and the Sangha, and recommends the cementing of the alliance with subsidy and peace, and in the case of refractory Sanghas, with war.⁶⁵ This concept of an all-India empire stretching from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, according to Kauṭalya⁶⁶ receives further support from another important political term: ekacchatra, or one-umbrella sovereignty. To add to these notions of imperial rule we have the theory of Kaṇika Bharadvāja, a political thinker who figures in the Mahābhārata and whose view is apparently rejected by Kauṭalya, namely the usurpation of degenerate dynasties. These pieces of evidence go to prove, beyond doubt, that imperialism as understood and realised in ancient India was one of the causes of chronic warfare.

c4.s6.t7.28

⁶⁴ Sakala Jambūdvīpa eka rājyam. 4.

c4.s6.t7.29

⁶⁵ Ar. Śās. Bk. XI, 1.

c4.s6.t7.30

⁶⁶ Ar. Śās. Bk. IX, 1.

c4.s6.t7.31

Thus a number of psychological factors prompted the ancient Kṣatriya to approach the problem of war, and made war inevitable. As already pointed out, there was one fundamental and vital difference between the

c4.s6.t7.32

समुद्र ईशे सवतामभिः पृथिव्या वशी ।
चन्द्रमा नक्षत्राणामीशे त्वमेकवृषोभव ॥
सम्राडस्यसुराणां ककुन्मनुष्याणाम् ।
देवानामधभागसि त्वमेकवृषो भव ॥ Bk. VI. 86.

c4.s6.t7.33

systems of ancient Indian warfare and those of modern times. In ancient India war affected only the War Department of the State and the warrior class. It did not eat into the vitals of the social structure, as it does to-day. Society pursued the arts of peace, trade, and commerce unaffected by the wars that were fought now and then. A kingdom conquered and a king vanquished meant no disturbance to the age-long civil administration of the kingdom. Often the defeated kings were reinstated, and the old administration was suffered to exist so long as that king acknowledged the sovereignty of the emperor by tribute and other means. This was the nature of imperial conquest and imperial rule in ancient India.

c4.s6.t7.34

Though wars were frequent, they were not recklessly entered into and ruthlessly fought. There was no slaughter of innocents. Policy and method characterised these wars. Immoral and unrighteous modes of war were as far as possible avoided, and they were put into operation only if exigency dictated such a course. We shall examine these in the following pages.

Linked texts (7)