War in Ancient India c5.s2.91

c5.s2.91

20. Another feature of the dharmayuddha was to leave the fruit and flower gardens, temples, and other places of public worship unmolested.⁹⁴ Clausewitz characterises such a direction of war as the necessary consequence of the spirit of progress.⁹⁵ We have the testimony of a foreign ambassador to this country in the fourth century B.C. Megasthenes says: ‘ Whereas among other nations it is usual in the contests of war to ravage the soil and then reduce it to an uncultivated waste, among the Indians, on the contrary, by whom husbandmen are regarded as a class that is sacred and inviolable, the tillers of the soil, even when battle is raging in their neighbourhood, are undisturbed by any sense of danger from the combatants and either side in waging the conflict make carnage of each other but allow those engaged in husbandry to remain unmolested.