War in Ancient India c8.74

c8.74

From the inter-tribal relations of earliest times the evolution was to inter-state relations and finally to international relations. The early epoch of the Vedas bears evidence of inter-tribal relations. It is therefore impossible to trace in Vedic literature anything like a separate war department. That such a department existed in the epic age—the age of inter-state relations—is again a matter of inference. We have no express mention of a foreign department either in the *Rāmāyaṇa* or in the *Mahābhārata*. The conception of a circle of states which is so elaborately described in the Kauṭalīya would mean the existence of an elaborate foreign office to realize the ends of the state. This receives corroboration from the records of Megasthenes. During the epoch of the Guptas there was a foreign office. The office of the foreign minister was distinct from that of the minister of peace. In the Allahabad Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta there occur two terms, *Sandhivigraha* and *Mahāsandhivigraha*, besides *Saciva*. The first was minister of peace and war, and the second was an officer superior to *Sandhivigraha*. Harisena was foreign minister to the emperor Samudragupta.⁴³ Candragupta II also had a minister for foreign affairs.