The Rashtrakutas and their Times c15.30

c15.30

The Yuvaraja and other princes of the blood royal, members of the ministry, the chamberlain and his assistants, military officers and other high dignitaries of state were the most prominent members of the royal court. Poets also were there, for the Rāṣṭrakūṭas were liberal patrons of literature, as will be shown in chapter XV. By the side of the poets, we might imagine, were sitting the astrologers. There is definite evidence to show that astrologers were maintained at the court of the Gujarat Rāṣṭrakūṭas, (20) and when we remember the great hold of astrology on the popular mind during our period we may not be wrong in assuming that the astrologers figured in the Malkhed court also. It may be pointed out that the *Kāmandaka-nīti-sāra*, a work probably written at about our period, lays down that a royal astrologer should be always maintained at the court.²¹ The doctor is known to have been one of the court officers of the Gahadwalas;²² for obvious reasons he could hardly have been absent from the Rāṣṭrakūṭa court as well. Merchants, presidents of guilds, and other notables of the capital were prominent among the non-official members of the royal court.