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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
254
OLD BRAHMÌ INSCRIPTIONS
standing army, numbering 60,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry, and 700 war elephants.” Prof. Radhakumud Mookerji rightly suggests that “this army must have been considerably expanded by the time of Asoka when the number of casualties alone is stated to be at least 4 lacs (taking the number of those who ultimately succumbed to the wounds of war to be, say, 3 lacs).”I
Prof. Mookerji's reference is evidently Asoka's R. E. XIII containing, as it does, an account of the heavy casualties suffered by the king. dom of Kalinga in the aggressive war waged by the Maurya emperor in the eighth year of his reign. This account goes to prove that the fighting army of Kalinga in Asoka's time could afford to suffer the losses of 150,000 men as deportees, of 100,000 men as those killed in action, and of " many times as many * men as 'those who died of wounds received in the fight.'2
Here the expression “many times as many" is vague and indefinite, and guilty, no doubt, " of an exaggeration.” The following seems to be a reasonable estimate of the fighting army of Kalinga, which has been recently suggested by Prof. Mookerji : “ If the number of those (who died of wounds received in the fight) be taken to be at least thrice that of the killed, the total number of casualties would be 4 lacs, and adding to this the number of the deportees, the number of the army that fought on the battle-field would be at least 5 lacs.:'3
Having regard to the fact that in the case of Asoka's Kalinga war, the army of Kalinga fought in defence against a foreign invasion, and that in the case of Kbāravelu's campaigns, the army of Kalinga marched out to produce a marked impression all over India, it may be safely presumed that the total pomber of the standing army of Kalinga during Khāravela's reign was by far the greater and by no means less than 51 (or 37 ?) lacs. In accordance with Plutarch's statement (Life of Alexander, Ch. XII), “Androkottos (Chandragupta Maurya) was able to overrun and subdue the whole of India with an army of 600,000.” If it was possible
1. Asoka, p. 16.
2. If Asoka's statement be taken to refer to the casualties suffered by two armies, the army of Kalióga and the army of Magadha (which is not likely), the number of the Kalinga army in Asoka's time must have been much less than 5 lacs, the number fixed by Radhakumud Mookerji
3. Asoka, p. 162, f. n. 3. It seems that Asoka's expression bahutāvamtake may be interpreted, with reference to the just preceding figure of 1 lac, also as meaning "as many as that (1 lao)," it which case the total will be 37 lacs (17 +1+1).
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