Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 39
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications

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Page 144
________________ 188 THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY. [MAY, 1910. Having made peace with the conqneror, he may give the conqueror part of the gold promised and the rest gradoally. Thus he may canse the conqueror's defensive forces to be slackened and then strike them down with fire, poison or sword; or be may win the confidence of the conqueror's courtiers deputed to take the tribate. Or if his resources are exhaasted, bo may run away abandoning his fort; he may escape through a tunnel or through a hole newly made or by breaking the parapet. Or having challenged the conqueror at night, he may successfully confront the attack; if he cannot do this, he may run away by a side path; or disguised as a beretic, bo may escape with a small retingo; or he may be carried off by spies as a corpse ; or disguised as a woman, he may follow a corpse (as it were, of her husband to the cremation ground); or on the occasion of feeding the people in honour of gods or of ancestors or in some festival, he may make use of poisoned rica and water, and having conspired with his enemy's traitors, be may strike the enemy with his concealed aray, or when he is surrounded in bis fort, he may lie concealed in a hole bored into the body of an idol after eating sacramental food and setting up an altar; or he may lie in a secret holo in & wall, or in a hole made in the body of an idol in an underground chamber; and when he is forgotten, he may get out of his concenlment throagh a tunnel, and, entering into the palace, slay his enemy while sleeping, or loosening the fastenings of a machine (yantra), he may let it fall on his enemy; or when his enemy is lying in a chamber which is besmeared with poisonous and explosire substances or which is made of lao, be may set fire to it. Fiery spies, hidden in an underground chambor, or in a tunnel, or inside a secret wall, may slay the enemy when the latter is carelessly amusing hiniself in a pleasure park or any other place of recreation; or spies under concealment may poison him; or women under concealment may throw a snake, or poison, or fire or poisonous smoke over his person when he is asleep in a confined place; or spies, having ccess to the enemy's harem, may, when orportunities cecur, do to the enemy whatever is found possible on the occasion, and then get out unknown. On such occasions, they should make use of the signs indicative of the purpose of their socioty. Having by means of trompet sounds called together the sentinels at the gate as well as nged men and other spies stationed by others, the enemy may completely carry out the rest of his work.87 Book XIII. Strategic means to capture a fortress (Durgalambhopayah). Chapter I. Bowing the seeds of dissension (Upajapah). When the conqueror is desirous of seizing an enemy's village, he should infase enthusiastic spirit among his own men and frighten his enemy's people by giving publicity to his power of omniscience and close association with gods. Proclamation of his omniscience is as follows:-rejection of his chief officers when their secret, domestic and other private affairs are known; revealing the names of traitors after receiving information from spies specially employed to find out such men ; pointing out the impolitic aspect of any course of action suggested to him; and pretensions to the knowledge of foreign affairs by means of his power to read omens and signs invisible to others when information about foreign affairs is just received through a domestic pigeon which bas brought a sealed letter. IT In Sloka metro.

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