War in Ancient India c7.s4.7

c7.s4.7

The *Śukranīti* further describes the characteristics of a good army. Here a distinction is made between the standing army and the newly recruited army, the trained army and the untrained army, the efficient army and the inefficient army (*sāra* and *asāra*). In short this political treatise envisages two kinds of recruitment—*gulmībhūta* answering to the standing army, and *agulmaka* corresponding to the mercenary troops,¹²⁹ though it is not altogether unfamiliar to the other balas with the exception of *śreṇibala* mentioned in the