The Rashtrakutas and their Times c15.25

c15.25

A few words may be said about the Rāshṭrakūṭa court. We have no detailed description of the pomp and splendour of the royal court in any contemporary document, but a few hints given by our records can be utilised. The access to the court was regulated by the royal chamberlain and his staff; a verse in the Sanjan plates of Amoghavarsha I says that even feudatories and foreign potentates had to wait outside the portals till they were called for audience. It would thus appear that Rāṣṭrakūṭa kings transacted their business systematically; only those were admitted in the audience hall whose business was about to be considered. The court was surrounded by regiments of infantry, cavalry and elephants; these were intended partly to secure safety and partly to show off imperial pomp. Very often the elephants and horses carried from the defeated enemies were exhibited outside the royal court along with other valuable booty.¹⁴ Abu Zaid, a contemporary of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas, has observed that the kings of India were accustomed to wear earrings of precious stones, mounted in gold, and necklaces of great value formed of pearls and precious stones. In the Rāṣṭrakūṭa court also very probably the king must have appeared on ceremonious occasions in rich dress and ornaments. He was attended, as was the case with almost all the kings in contemporary drama and fiction, by courtesans and dancing girls; this custom was so common in our period that even Somadeva, the Jain writer of our period, is compelled to countenance it.¹⁵ Al-Idrisi records its prevalence in the Chālukya court of Aṇahilapaṭṭaṇa,¹⁶ and the Nilgund inscription confirms the same conclusion when it informs us that Amoghavarsha I had covered all the territories of the numerous chieftains and hostile kings with thousands of courtesans. It would appear that the sovereign rulers used to compel their feudatories to accept some imperial courtesans in their courts. These used to be in immediate attendance on the kings and, therefore, must have served as ideal spies. The gifts given by a concubine of the Chālukya king Vikramāditya II just before the rise of the Rāṣṭrakūṭas¹⁷ would show that many of these courtesans must have been fairly rich and may have wielded considerable power and influence. Al-Idrisi tells us that the Cālukya rulers of Gujarat used to go out once a week in state, attended only by women, one hundred in number, richly clad, wearing rings of gold and silver upon their hands and feet, and engaged in various games and sham-fights,—a description which reminds us of the Second Act of Śakuntala, where we read of king Dushyanta being followed by amazon archers, while out on hunting. The statement in Kadba plates (18) that the moon-faced damsels of the court of Kṛṣṇa I used to delight the ladies of the capital by the movements of their lotus-like hands, which could skilfully convey internal emotions, might perhaps show that a similar custom prevailed in the Rāṣṭrakūṭa court also. It is a little unlikely that all the ladies of the capital could have been admitted in the royal court; in that case they may be seeing these dances in some processions. It is true that the British Museum plates of Govinda III (19) do not refer to any Yavanīs or courtesans accompanying the king when they describe the boar-hunting of the king. But the king was at that time out on expedition and, therefore, the Yavanīs or courtesans may not have figured in the hunting party.