War in Ancient India c4.s6.t7.27

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.