The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c9.s2.t1.30

c9.s2.t1.30

Round every suzerain and every feudatory chief there is an aristocracy of warriors. Strife is the law of their being throughout the Mahābhārata. They evince the highest loyalty to their chief and are always ready to lay down their lives for him. "Sweet it is to die in battle, the path to heaven lies in fighting."⁴ The Vana Parvan has it that glory is preferable to life and that a hero's real life is the life of his fame.⁵ That was the Kṣatriya way to be observed by royal and other aristocratic families. At the tragic conclusion of the domestic war, the blind, old Dhritarāṣṭra says that he does not grieve for his hundred slaughtered sons. "They have all died in the observance of Kṣatriya duties."⁶ To Yudhiṣṭhira who, with his brothers, was responsible for the extermination of the old man's progeny, he had already remarked once, "Rise up . . . Do thou now attend to thy duties . . . Thou hast conquered this earth according to the usage of the Kṣatriyas."⁷ Instances of such expressions and deeds can be multiplied almost without number.