________________
JUXE, 1910.)
THE ARTHASASTRA OF CHANAKYA.
161
THE ARTHASASTRA OF CHANAKYA (BOOKS V-XV).
Translated by
R. SHAMASASTRY, B.A., Librarian, Government Oriental Library, Mysore.06
(Continued from p. 144.)
Chapter IV.
The operation of a siege (Paryupasanakarma). DEDUCTION (of the enemy) must precede a siege. The territory that has been conquered
I should be kept so peacefully that it might sleep without any fear. When it is in rebellion, it is to be pacified by bestowing rewards and remitting taxes, unless the conqueror means to quit it. Or he may select his battlefields in a remote part of the enemy's territory, far from the populous centres, for, in the opinion of Kautilya, no territory deserves the name of a kingdom or country unless it is full of people. When & people resist the attempt of the conqueror, then be may destroy their stores, crops, and granaries, and trade.
By the destruction of trade, agricultural produce, and standing crops, by causing the people to run away, and by slaying their leaders in secret, the country will be denuded of its people. 26
When the conqueror thinks, "My army is provided with abundance of staple corn, raw materials, machines, weapons, dress, labourers, ropes and the like, and has a favourable season to act, whereas my enemy has an anfavourable season and is suffering from disease, famine and loss of stores and defensive force, while bis hired troops as well as the army of his friend are in a miserable condition," -then he may begin the siege.
Having well guarded his camp, transports, sapplies, and also the roads of communication, and baving dug up a ditch and raised a rampart round his camp, he may vitiate the water in the ditches round the enemy's fort, or empty the ditches of their water or fill them with water if empty, and then he may assail the rampart and the parapets by making use of anderground tunnels and iron rods. If the ditch (dvdram) is very deep, he may fill it up with soil. If it is defended by a number of men, he may destroy it by means of machines. Horse soldiers may force their passage through the gate into the fort and smite the enemy. Now and then in the midst of tumult, he may offer terms to the enemy by taking recourse to one, two, three, or all of the strategic meang.
Having captured the birds ruch as the vulture, crow, naptir, bhdsa, parrot, maina, and pigeon which have their nests in the fort-walls, and having tied to their tails inflammable powders (agniyoga), he may let them fly to the forts. If the camp is situated at a distance from the fort and is provided with an elevated post for archers and their flags, then the eneny's fort may be set on fire. Spies, living as watchmen of the fort, may tie inflammable powder to the tails of mongooses, monkeys, cats and dogs and let them go over the thatched roofs of the houses. A splinter of fire kept in the body of a dried fish may be caused to be carried off by a monkey, or a crow, or any other bird (to the thatched roofs of the houses).
Small balls prepared from the mixture of sarala (pinus longifolia), deraddru (deodar), pútitrina (stinking grass), guggulu (bdellium), šríveshtała (turpentine), the juice of sarja (vatica robusta), and laksha (lac) combined with dungs of an ass, camel, sheep, and goat are inflammable (agwid haranah, i.e., such as keep fire).
The first four books have been published in the Mysore Review, 1906-1909. This is in flo ka metre.
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