War in Ancient India c4.s6.t7.20

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.