70 SOCIAL SCIENTIST minimum number that fought on Kurukshetra should have been 18,00(L Taking into consideration the population of north India of that period, it was definitely the greatest war of that age. The other reason given by Sankalia for reducing the war to a family feud is that it being a heroic Iron Age like that of the Greeks of the epic period there could not be any indiscriminate fights but only duels {dvanduas). This conception is a logical corollary of the ^family outlook/ Duels were parts of sam-kula (fight between two or more clans) skirmishes. A warrior who fought in a chariot {rathi) always moved in a prescribed formation by which he was flanked on both sides by supporting rathis (cakra'rakshakas) and followed by his platoon of infantry. That is why an attempt was always made to isolate a redoubtable rathi from his covering formation in order to kill him. The Vedic term for tribal assembly and war is sam-grama. The word itself denotes that a tribe gathered for its^ tribal assembly and went to war clan-wise. The Vedic word for enemy is a-mitra, meaning an alien tribesman or a foe of a tribe as a whole. The present versions of both the epics being the products of quite a late period their sequence also is a matter of controversy. Both the epics make mention of iron. Hence, it is contended that Ramayana took place after Mahabharata. The anteriority of Ramayana vis a vis Mahabharata cannot be proved conclusively on the basis of tradition, literary or otherwise. The issue can be clinched only by examining the societies renresent^ ed by the epics. Conflict in the Ramayana Right up to the time of the abduction of Sita the main conflict in Ramayana is between the priest-kingly (rajarshi) monarchical tribal states of the Kosalas and the matriarchal tribal states such as the Malada-Karusha. ruled by the Yakshi Tataka and the Jana-sthana ruled by the Rakshasi Surpanakha {one having nails like winnowing baskets). The Asuras, Daityas, Danavas, Rakshasas, Yakshas, Gandharvas and so on are always bracketed together as Nairritas, meaning the progeny of Nirriti, the primal mother goddess of the pre-Aryan Indus civilization. They were either matriarchal or matrilineal. The final struggle in the epic was between the patriarchal theocratic monarchical system represented by Rama and the matrilineal theocratic monarchical system represented by Ravana. The bone of contention was Sita. If she was just an individual princess or a queen, why was she called a daughter of the Earth Mother? It means that she was an institution individualized by Valmiki. If A-halya, literally meaning land not ploughed but sown by a hoe (sphya), was the much-maligned high priestess and tribal mother of the Videhas, Sita, literally meaning ploughed and cultivated land, was the daughter and heir of Ahalya. With the patriachal priest-kingship of the Janakas (literally meaning 'begetter'in the original derogatory sense) the Sita temple land (kata) became the crown land, the private property ofthejanaka dynasty. Later the ruling Janaka disposed of Sita in a patrilochal marriage and with the marriage the institution of