The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c28.67

v1.c28.67

As regards daily life, we find the public side of it sufficiently gay. The people were frugal in their diet, and sober, except on occasion of festivals. The chief display of luxury was in dress⁴. The inns, hostelries, eating-houses, serais, and gaming-houses are evidently numerous; sects and crafts have perhaps their meeting places and the latter their public dinners⁵. The business of entertainment provides a livelihood for various classes of dancers, singers, and actors⁶. Even the villages are visited by them, and the author of the Arthaçāstra is inclined to discourage the existence of a common hall used for their shows as too great a distraction from the life of the home and the fields⁷. At the same time there are penalties for refusal to assist in organising public entertainment. The king provides in amphitheatres constructed for the occasion dramatic, boxing, and other contests of men and animals, and also spectacles with displays of pictured objects of curiosity¹—no doubt the private showman with his pictures of Hades, etc., was also active—; and not seldom the streets were lighted up for festivals and it was not penal to stir abroad. Then there were also the royal processions, when His Majesty went forth to view his city or to hunt².