Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s27.2

c9.s27.2

Taxila was a large city governed by good laws. The surrounding country was thickly peopled and extremely fertile, and the wealth of the city and its ruler might be judged from the presents offered to Alexander and his friends by Taxiles. Some strange and unusual customs of Taxila are noticed by Aristobulus. Those who, from poverty, were unable to marry off their daughters, exposed them in the flower of their youth for sale in the market place, advertising them by the sound of wardrums and conches; a prospective husband was allowed to inspect the back of the girl first, then her front, and if there was mutual agreement, the alliance followed. Another custom was to throw out the dead to be devoured by vultures, doubtless a trace of Iranian influence. Polygamy was not unknown here as elsewhere, and Sati was practised among Taxilans, and the widow who refused to burn was held in contempt.¹ Sati was observed among the Kathaians also, and Strabo is frankly sceptical of Diodorus' reason for the practice, namely that it was meant to check women seeking to dispose of their husbands by poison when they happened to fall in love with younger men.² From Diodorus, however, we get one of the earliest and most vivid descriptions of the actual scenes that marked such occasions. An Indian commander in the Army of Eumenes was killed in battle in Iran in 316 B.C.; he had two wives and both offered to burn themselves on his pyre ; the matter was taken to the Greek generals who decided in favour of the younger wife burning, as the elder one was with child. ‘Whereupon the one who lost her cause went away weeping and wailing, rent the veil from her head, and tore her hair as if some terrible news had been told her. The other, overjoyed at her victory, set forth for the funeral pile, crowned with fillets by the women who belonged to her, and decked out splendidly as for a wedding. She was escorted by her kindred setting forth in song the praises of her virtues. When she came near to the pyre, she took off her adornments and distributed them to her servants and friends leaving them as memorials of her, as it were, to those who had loved her. Her adornments consisted of a multitude of finger-rings, set with precious stones of divers colours ; upon her head there was no small number of little golden stars, between which were placed sparkling stones of all sorts ; about her neck she wore several necklaces each a little larger than the one above it. At length she took farewell of her domestics, and was assisted by her brother to mount the pyre, and, to the great admiration of the crowd which had gathered together to see the spectacle, she made her exit from life in heroic style. For the whole army under arms marched thrice round the pile before fire was set to it, and the victim, having meanwhile laid herself by her husband's side, scorned to demean herself by uttering shrieks even when the flames were raging round her. The spectators were moved, some to pity and some to exuberant praise, while there were not wanting Greeks who condemned the custom as savage and inhumane.’