ANCIENT INDIA. 



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soldiers who had lost their coats of mail, to those disarmed, or 

 wounded or "terrified" or running away. To the modem 

 substitute for neutrality as practised in Vedic times the 

 " Convention of Greneva" is applied in token of its recent 

 introduction as a result of very far advanced civilization. But 

 to the principle of non-interference between two warriors while 

 engaged against each other no modern name is applicable, the 

 principle itself having been ages ago swept away in the onward 

 march from barbarism. The wounded and the dead were left 

 upon the field except in the comparatively rare instances of 

 chiefs and men of special rank ; these were removed from the 

 field but by no means in every case ; so we read that in some 

 cases a guard was mounted over a wounded warrior as he lay 

 upon the field, and so continued during seven days, at the end 

 of which time death came to his rescue. According to the other 

 principles of war, followed on the same occasion, an enemy 

 when wounded was to be treated in the enemy's country or 

 sent to his home. 



The dead are said in some instances to have lain on the 

 field unburied during eighteen days, at the end of which 

 time, considering an Indian climate, birds and beasts of prey, 

 little more than skeletons could have remained. The dead 

 were burnt upon the field. The bodies of chiefs, being first 

 wrapped in fine funeral cloths, were incinerated, their pyre 

 composed of sandal and other odoriferous woods and sweet 

 oils. The bodies of the ordinary classes were wrapped in 

 cloths of coarser materials, their pyres composed of faggots 

 and a commoner quality of oil. After a battle, carts were 

 employed to convey burning materials for the above purposes 

 to the field. 



9. Surgeons. — On the occasion of the battle between Babhru- 

 vahana of Manipura and his father Arjuna, when the latter 

 was. defeated, Cbitrangada, the mother of the former, hearing 

 that among the chieftains taken prisoners was Pradyumna, 



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