History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v4.c62.388.3

v4.c62.388.3

Bṛhat-Parāśara X p. 280 also says that a wise man should not resort to fighting and that daṇḍa is to be resorted to only when there is no other course left. In Udyoga 132. 29-30 (cr. ed. chap. 130) Kuntī sends a message through Kṛṣṇa to her son : 'begging is forbidden to you nor is agriculture appropriate for you; you are a kṣatriya living by the power of his arms and a protector against injury (kṣatāt trātā). Recover your ancestral share by sāma, dāna, bheda, daṇḍa and naya'. In Udyoga 150 (cr. ed. 148) Kṛṣṇa informs Yudhiṣṭhira how he first employed sāma, then bheda, then dāna (viz. giving up the whole kingdom for five villages) and how only daṇḍa is the proper recourse in the case of the wicked Kauravas. Hopkins, as very often, being obsessed with his ideas of three strata in the Mahābhārata says that three means appear to be the oldest form and four means a later idea. There is hardly any warrant for this opinion as for many others in the same strain (J. A. O. S. vol. XIII. pp. 182-183 n). The Viṣṇudharmottara II. 146 speaks of the four upāyas and states that daṇḍa as regards a foreign state is open (prakāśa) i. e. burning and not-open (aprakāśa i. e. by poison or secret death). The Mit. on Yāj. I. 346 and Kām. XVIII. 1 say the same thing. The Viṣṇudharmasūtra III. 38 prescribes that the four upāyas are to be employed at the proper time and according to the attitudes of the hostile king, friendly king, the *madhyama* and *udāsīna* kings²²³. The Mit. on Yāj. I.