The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.90

c2.s5.90

A word here on the military authorities. Manu (in spite of his code’s military advice) is unknown as a military adviser. That is to say, the seventh book of the Mānava-dharma was expanded to its present form after the battling parts of the Epic were written, as other portions of the Epic show that no slight was intended to this authority. The main sages are Uçanas and Brihaspati. With the latter Manu has many a question of priority to settle.* Another authority (celebrated later) mentioned in the third book, Çālihotra, as ‘wise in the knowledge and pedigree of horses,’ appears to have confined himself to this specialty, and is not quoted as a guide on broader military affairs. But the rules of the two inseparables, Brihaspati and Uçanas, are quoted often enough to make us certain that a military code must have been composed by them. The one military strategy formally cited (as given above) is from Brihaspati;† and the same author invented the impregnable vyūha called krauñcāruṇa.‡ Again, the ‘king of battle-orders’ is declared to come from the same sage.§ The first of these is probably meant in the Brihaspati-naya of the Rāmāyaṇa.‖ I have already spoken of the rules of Brihaspati and Uçanas,¶ and these occur again as a manual of instruction in the war-part of the Epic.** Their names have become typical of military and philosophical learning.†† But, although Uçanas shares the name and the honor, his friend appears to have been, if we may so speak, the more inventive genius in the science of war: as the citations already given and to be given show. The battle-orders called śakaṭa, padma, vajra are explained in Uçanas’ code, according to xv. 7. 15.* The science of the battle-orders was opposed as a special study to all other branches necessary for a warrior to know: ‘I am wise in military affairs, and in the battle-orders,’ says a chief; ‘I can make the mercenaries and those not mercenaries do their duty; in respect of marching, fighting, etc., I know as much as did Bṛhaspati; I know all the battle-orders of gods and of men,’ etc. (v. 165. 8 ff.). The special points of an officer’s knowledge seem to be these: how to break through into the foe’s advancing battalion, and how to maintain order in his own; as the passage quoted above enjoining double pay for officers able to do this well would indicate. Though we should antecedently assume this as the greatest need in a general (given the Hindu troops and a battle under way), it deserves to be emphasized, from the negative evidence it furnishes that generalship was regarded mainly as fighting-ability confined to the actual conflict; or, in other words, no strategic ability in choosing position, heming in a foe, preserving free passage to the base of supplies, and other such matters, is lauded. Only knowing how to act when springing at the foe is praised; though universal directions for suiting the ground to the kind of force employed are casually given.