The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.143

v1.c17.143

From the political point of view the chief characteristic of the new order was the growth in the power of the king. We must not assume that, even in this period, there were great kingdoms. It is true that the horse-sacrifice as reported in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa and in the royal consecration of the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa, both of which passages are late, presuppose that the kings who performed it set up claims to imperial dignity, and that they had won the proud title of ‘conquerors of the whole earth,’ which is applied to them. But real conquest seems not to have been meant; and, though the evidence above given proves that there was considerable amalgamation of tribes and the formation of larger kingdoms than those in the period of the Rigveda, yet it is significant that even the Kuru-Pañchālas, and still less the Kosala-Videhas, never amalgamated into single kingdoms. We may, however, safely hold that the king now ruled in many cases a much larger realm than the princes of the Rigveda. The hereditary character of the monarchy is clearly apparent: in one case, that of the Sṛiñjayas, we hear expressly of a monarchy which had lasted ten generations. The term Rājaputra, ‘son of a king,’ is now found together with the older Rājanya, which probably covers the nobles as well as the king and his family. The importance of the kingly rank is emphasised by the elaborate rite of the royal consecration, the Rājasūya. The king is clad in the ceremonial garments of his rank, is formally anointed by the priest, steps on a tiger skin to attain the power of the tiger, takes part in a mimic cattle raid, assumes the bow and arrow, and steps as a conqueror to each of the four quarters, an action paralleled in the coronation of the Hungarian king. A game of dice is played in which he is made the victor. A list of kings who were thus consecrated is given in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa: in all but details it coincides with the list given in the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa of those who performed the horse-sacrifice.