War in Ancient India c7.s1.10

c7.s1.10

The importance and value of chariots in warfare can be seen also in the epics. In the *Rāmāyaṇa* and the *Mahābhārata* their use is largely in evidence. Here mention is made of official charioteers, *i.e.*, a king accompanied by a charioteer, similar to a custom depicted in Assyria on the marbles from Nineveh. Thus whereas we had in the Ṛg Vedic age a single rider, in the age of the Brāhmaṇas and epics we meet with one warrior and an accompanying charioteer. In the *Atharva Veda* Indra was the left stander and the moon-god was the charioteer.¹⁸ In the fourth century B.C. two fighting men are seen in each chariot besides the charioteer. This is testified by the fragments of Megasthenes.¹⁹ We know that Kṛṣṇa was the charioteer of Arjuna in the Kurukṣetra war and earned the appropriate title of Pārthasārathi.