Warfare in Ancient South Asia

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India and Pakistan
During the Vedic period (1500-500 BC), the Vedas and other associated texts contain references to warfare. The earliest allusions to a specific battle are those to the  Battle of the Ten Kings in mandala 7 of the Rigveda.

The two great ancient epics of India, Ramayana and Mahabharata (c. 1000-500 BC) are centered on conflicts and refer to military formations, theories of warfare and esoteric weaponry. Valmiki's Ramayana describes Ayodhya's military as defensive rather than aggressive. The city, it says, was strongly fortified and was surrounded by a deep moat. Ramayana describes Ayodhya in the following words: "The city abounded in warriors undefeated in battle, fearless and chinskilled in the use of arms, resembling lions guarding their mountain caves". Mahabharata describes various military techniques, including the Chakravyuha.

The world's first recorded military application of war elephants is in the Mahabharatha. From India, war elephants were taken to the Persian Empire where they were used in several campaigns. The Persian king Darius III employed about 50 Indian elephants in the Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) fought against Alexander the Great. In the Battle of the Hydaspes River, the Indian king Porus, who ruled in Punjab, with his smaller army of 200 war elephants, 2000 cavalry and 20,000 infantry, presented great difficulty for Alexander the Great's larger army of 4000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry, though Porus was eventually defeated. At this time, the Magadha Empire further east in northern and eastern India had an army of 6000 war elephants, 80,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry and 8000 armed chariots.

Chanakya (c. 350-275 BC) was a professor of political science at Takshashila University, and later the Prime Minister of emperor Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chanakya wrote the Arthashastra, which covered various topics on ancient Indian warfare in great detail, including various techniques and strategies relating to war. These included the earliest uses of espionage and assassinations. These techniques and strategies were employed by Chandragupta Maurya, who was a student of Chanakya, and later by Ashoka the Great (304-232 BC).

Chandragupta Maurya conquered the Magadha Empire and expanded to all of northern India, establishing the Maurya Empire, which extended from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. In 305 BC, Chandragupta defeated Seleucus I Nicator, who ruled the Seleucid Empire and controlled most of the territories conquered by Alexander the Great. Seleucus eventually lost his territories in Southern Asia, including southern Afghanistan, to Chandragupta. Seleucus exchanged territory west of the Indus for 500 war elephants and offered his daughter to Chandragupta. In this matrimonial alliance the enmity turned into friendship, and Seleucus' dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to the Mauryan court at Pataliputra. As a result of this treaty, the Maurya Empire was recognized as a great power by the Hellenistic World, and the kings of Egypt and Syria sent their own ambassadors to his court. According to Megasthenes, Chandragupta Maurya built an army consisting of 30,000 cavalry, 9000 war elephants, and 600,000 infantry, which was the largest army known in the ancient world. Ashoka the Great went on to expand the Maurya Empire to almost all of South Asia, along with much of Afghanistan and parts of Persia. Ashoka eventually gave up on warfare after converting to Buddhism.

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