The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c13.8

c13.8

The proposition of the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (VIII. 24), that every king who wants to perform a sacrifice, must have a purohita, as otherwise the gods will not accept his offering, also held good in eastern lands, so long at any rate as sacrifice was held in esteem. A king without a purohita was even here inconceivable, before Buddhism called in question the efficacy of sacrifice and magical chantings. Not being himself in a position—just because he lacks supernatural powers, the exclusive right of the priestly class—to propitiate the gods and demons, nor knowing the means by which the future could not only be known but made to favour him, he took recourse to the magician priest for influencing the transcendental world, to the Indian Shaman. In executing his commission, the purohita must perform the sacrifice, along with Brâhmaṇas who act under him, in order to drive away the misfortune which accrues to the king through bad dreams (in the Mahâsaripa Jâtaka, I. 334 sq.), or through sinister moaning (in the Lohakumbhi Jâtaka, III. 43 sq.) ; if inexplicable natural phenomena, such as the flashing of the weapons, cause anxiety to the king, the purohita refers them to the constellation of the stars; arms and animals which the king uses, must be consecrated by magic formulæ (for example, the state elephants through *hattisutta*, II. 46), so that their use may bring luck. If, however, all this was the business of the *purohita*, then the destiny of the king was placed in his hands : it lay with him whether the favour of the gods was to be invoked on behalf of the king, his sacrificial lord; it was in his power to do the opposite; to him the king must come if he wanted to know beforehand the result of any undertaking by means of any sign or constellation of stars; especially, when he did not trust himself to answer the question whether he had any chance of conquering his enemies in war or thought it necessary to seek the help of the gods.¹ This position of the *purohita* with respect to the king led necessarily to an extremely intimate personal relation between the two; under circumstances there might arise—when the king was weak and the *purohita* possessed great energy—a temporal power of the latter who as a matter of fact had originally nothing to do with administration. For both of these our text gives us instances.