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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s39: 28. Women in the Palace

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s39

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28. Women in the Palace

c9.s39.1

The king's personal wants were attended to by women. The bodyguards and soldiery were posted outside the palace gates. The statements that a woman who killed the king when drunk became the wife of his successor, and that the king might not sleep during day, and was obliged to change his couch often by night with a view to defeat plots against his life, must be treated as curious gossip rather than be accepted for facts as some writers do. On the other hand, the role of women in the personal service of the king is well attested in Indian literature, and Kauṭilya lays down many precautions to be observed as a routine for ensuring the personal comfort and safety of the king (*ātmarakṣitakam*). The king spent much time outside his palace hearing and judging cases, and he did this even while he was being massaged. He went out for offering sacrifice, and for the chase. The hunting procession was a somewhat Bacchanalian display. ‘Crowds of women surround him, and outside of this circle spearmen are ranged. The road is marked off with ropes, and it is death, for man and woman alike, to pass within the ropes. Men with drums and gongs lead the procession. The king hunts in the enclosures and shoots arrows from a platform. At his side stand two or three armed women. If he hunts in the open grounds he shoots from the back of an elephant. Of the women, some are in chariots, some on horses, and some even on elephants, and they are equipped with weapons of every kind as if they were going on a campaign’¹. Curtius gives a more rhetorical account of the king and his doings.

c9.s39.2

¹ Meg. Frag. XXVI (pp. 71–2)=Strabo, XV, 1, 53 (p. 58).

c9.s39.3

game enclosed within the royal park. The arrows, which are two cubits long, are discharged with more effort than effect, for though the force of these missiles depends on their lightness they are loaded with an obnoxious weight. He rides on horse-back when making short journeys, but when bound on a distant expedition he rides in a chariot (howdah) mounted on elephants and, huge as these animals are, their bodies are covered completely over with trappings of gold. That no form of shameless profligacy may be wanting, he is accompanied by a long train of courtesans carried in golden palanquins and this troop holds a separate place in the procession from the queen's retinue, and is as sumptuously appointed. His food is prepared by women, who also serve him with wine, which is much used by all Indians. When the king falls into a drunken sleep his courtesans carry him away to his bedchamber, invoking the gods of the night in their native hymns” (*Invasion*, pp. 188–190).

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