The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c15.s4.15

c15.s4.15

Let us now look to the other side of the shield. The international jurists of the world and peace-propagandists of America had for some time previous to the World-War (1914—1918) been devising ways and means to render warfare more humane and less barbarous. On several occasions before the outbreak of the War resolutions were passed by the "Concert of Europe" at the Hague Conferences regarding the kind of arms and ammunitions to be avoided out of consideration for human suffering. But the Hindu thinkers of Manu's school have handed down a tradition of chivalrous "ideals" probably as old as the sixth century B. C. The *Manu Samhitâ's* resolution reads thus in verse:¹