It had made concessions to human weakness, yes; had fallen, as I
think, from an ancient unity; it had not succeeded in abolishing
war. It was open to any king to make himself a Chakravartin, or
world-sovereign, if he disposed of the means for doing so:
which means were military. As this was a well-recognised
principle, wars were by no means rare. But with them all, what a
Utopia it was, compared to Christendom! There was never a draft
or conscription. Of the four castes, the Kshatriya or warrior
alone did the fighting. While the conches brayed, and the war-
cars thundered over Kurukshetra; while the pantheons held their
breath, watching Arjun and mightiest Karna at battle--the
peasants in the next field went on hoeing their rice; they knew
no one was making war on them. They trusted Gandiva, the goodly
bow, to send no arrows their way; their caste was inviolable, and
sacred to the tilling of the soil. Megasthenes notes it with
wonder. War implied no ravaging of the land, no destruction
of crops, no battering down of buildings, no harm whatever
to non-combatants.

Kshatriya fought Kshatriya. If you were a Brahmin: which is to
say, a theological student, or a man of letters, a teacher or
what not of the kind--you were not even called up for physical
examination. If you were a merchant, you went on quietly with
your 'business as usual.' A mere patch of garden, or a peddler's
tray, saved you from all the horrors of a questionnaire.
Kshatriya fought Kshatriya, and no one else; and on the
battlefield, and nowhere else. The victor became possessed of
the territory of the vanquished; and there was no more fuss or
botheration about it.