Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/144

 114 CHANDRAGUPTA AND BINDUSARA who raised the numbers of the infantry to six hundred thousand, and also had thirty thousand horse, and nine thousand elephants, besides chariots, all' permanently enrolled in a regularly paid establishment. Each horseman carried two lances, resembling the kind called saunia by the Greeks, and a buckler. All the infantry carried the broadsword as their principal weapon, and as additional arms, either javelins, or bow and arrows. The arrow was discharged with the aid of pressure from the left foot on the extremity of the bow resting upon the ground, and with such force that neither shield nor breastplate could withstand it. Each chariot, which might be drawn by either four or two horses, accommodated two fighting-men besides the driver; and an elephant, in addition to the mahout, or driver, carried three archers. The nine thousand ele- phants therefore implied a force of thirty-six thousand men, and the eight thousand chariots, supposing them to be no more numerous than those kept by Mahapadma Nanda, required twenty-four thousand men to work them. The total number of soldiers in the army would thus have been six hundred thousand infantry, thirty thousand horsemen, thirty-six thousand men with the elephants, and twenty-four thousand with the chariots, or 690,000 in all, excluding followers and attendants. These high figures may seem incredible at first sight, but are justified by our knowledge of the unwieldy hosts used in war by Indian kings in later ages. For instance, Nunez, the Portuguese chronicler, who was contempo- rary with Krishna Deva, the Raja of Vijayanagar, in