________________
KALINGA UNDER THE MAURYAS
15%
of the war to the defeated people of Kalinga were not confined only to casualties. Asoka takes the more correct basis of the computation. He feelingly counts the suffering caused to the civilian population by 'violence or slaughter or separation from their loved ones'.' The losses of the war, according to Dr. R. K. Mookerji,? as mentioned in that ancient document (viz. Rock Edict XIII) are, indeed, computed on most modern principles under three heads :---
(i) The losses inflicted on the combatants by
death, wounds and capture ; (ii) the losses suffered by the families of the
combatants thus affected ; and (iii) the suffering caused to the friends of the bereaved or inflicted families.
(Lines 3 to 5) In a small country like Kalinga, even if we take it at its greatest extension from the mouth of the Gangā to that of the Godāvari, the slaughter of three to four hundred thousand men and the capture of one hundred and fifty thousand must have meant a very terrible carnage. D. R.
(brought forward) number of deportees, the total number of the army, that fought on the battle-field, would be at least 5 lacs. If with Gltz (The Nation In Arms, p. 148; Qtd, Jayaswal, JBORS, Vol. III, p. 440), we assume that 'every 15th soul of the population can take up arms in defence, against a foreign invasion', the population of Kalinga, in Asoka's time, would number at least 75 lacs. We may arrive, in the opinion of Dr. Mookerji (Asoka, p. 162 fn), at that figure by slightly altering the proportion of its fighting strength to its total population from 6% as stated by Goltz to say-8%, which is quite reasonable. The heavy casualties in this war with the Kalingas were. no doubt, due to the heroism of their defence as well as to the number of the army. 1. Original: "Apagratho va vadho va abhiratana va nikramaņam"
(Line 5). 2. Asoka, pp. 16–17.
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