The Mauryan Polity c7.s3.t1.4

c7.s3.t1.4

It is said that the royal palace was adorned with gilded pillars clasped all round by a vine embossed in gold while silver images of birds were a charm to the eye.³ "In the parks tame peacocks are kept, and pheasants which have been domesticated; and among cultivated plants there are some to which the king's servants attend with special care, for there are shady groves and pasture-grounds planted with trees, and branches of trees which the art of the woodsman has deftly interwoven . . . . Parrots are natives of the country, and keep hovering about the king and wheeling round him, and vast though their numbers be, no Indian ever eats a parrot."⁴ Again with regard to medicinal plants Aelian says that the country produces harmful and poisonous snakes. "But the same country produces plants which serve as antidotes to their bite, and of these the natives have so much knowledge and skill that they can apply the remedy suitable for the wound inflicted by any kind of snake.”¹