War in Ancient India c9.s2.7

c9.s2.7

In this connexion we may invite attention to an important prescription of the *Agnipurāṇa*.²⁸ It says that a competent general should attack the rear of the enemy if he should find the ground in front and on the sides undulating. In such a situation it was not possible for the enemy to escape.²⁹ Kauṭalya recommends entangling the enemy in an ambuscade by fording the river elsewhere if they guarded a particular ford.³⁰ This can be illustrated from the battle of the Ten Kings explained in the *Ṛg Veda Saṃhita*.³¹ Here the contending parties were the Tritsus and the Bharatas. Both planned to the Roman world, and the most important events of the reign of Constantine are thus represented as the immediate consequences of his conversion. But the historian, who must be content with the evidence of the times, will not be easily persuaded that the zeal of Constantine was not stimulated by the hope of political advantage, or that the conversion of the empire was not the result of a long and gradual process of change.