The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c12.8

c12.8

The court of the king consists in the epics of country nobles, the king’s allies, the king’s relations and feudatory kings; to these are to be added the priests who likewise belong to the King’s Council but who seem to be only admitted by gradual stages into the knightly assembly.¹ We find analogical conditions in the Jâtakas, though only partially. As the *uparâjan* always is, so also is the *senâpati* sometimes a relation of the king, a *khattiya* (I. 133; IV. 168); of other offices which were also in the hands of the *khattiyas* we learn, on the other hand, nothing from the Jâtakas, nor do we find any conquered or friendly princes in the service of the king. As regards the share of the Brâhmaṇas in the administration, this is limited to individual cases. Wherever the question is of the king’s officers, ministers and Brâhmaṇas are reckoned as separate classes and indeed, the latter, along with the other classes of people (the *gahapatis*, etc.), are set over against the ministers (*amacca ca brâhmaṇagahapati-âdayo ca*, I. 260). Thus we find this distinction in the Kumbhakâra Jâtaka, where it is described how, according to the Court etiquette, the mango is first eaten by the king, then by the ministers, then by the Brâhmaṇas, then by the gahapatis, etc. (III. 576). At the coronation ceremony, there stand round the throne of the king, at a distance from each other (ekato-ekato), the ministers, the Brâhmaṇas, the gahapatis, etc., as also the citizens and the dancing girls (III. 408). More clearly is the opposition between amacca and brâhmaṇa expressed in the Mahâmora Jâtaka: the ministers refer the king, when he puts a question relating to the meaning of a dream, as they themselves don't know how to interpret it, to the Brâhmaṇas with the words: "The Brâhmaṇas know it, O great king" (IV. 335).