The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c17.51

v1.c17.51

Of the entourage of the king and his servants we learn almost nothing. The *senānī*, 'leader of the army,' who appears in a few hymns, may have been a general appointed by the king to lead an expedition of too little importance to require his own intervention. The *grāmaṇī* probably led in war a minor portion of the host and was identical with the *vrājapati* mentioned elsewhere. Far more important, in the estimation at least of the composers of the hymns, was the *purohita* or domestic priest, whose position represented the height of a priest's ambition. Nor, after allowing for priestly partiality and exaggeration, can we deny the importance of the Purohita amongst a people who followed the guiding in religious matters of an hereditary priesthood. The Vedic Purohita was the forerunner of the Brāhman statesmen who from time to time in India have shown conspicuous ability in the management of affairs; and there is no reason to doubt that a Viçvāmitra or a Vasishṭha was a most important element of the government of the early Vedic realm. It is clear, too, from the hymns which are attributed to the families of these sages, that the Purohita accompanied the king to battle, and seconded his efforts for victory by his prayers and spells. In return for his faithful service the rewards of the Purohita were doubtless large: the *dānastutis* of the Rigveda tell of the generous gifts of patrons to the poets, and we may safely assume that the largest donations were those of kings to the Purohitas. It is significant of the social arrangements of the time that the gifts enumerated are all gifts of personal property; land was evidently not then a normal form of gift, though we may conjecture that, even at this early period, the king might confer on a priest or other servant the right to receive some portion of the gifts in kind which were clearly no inconsiderable part of the royal revenues.