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The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4.t1: B. Royalty

The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s4.t1

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Contents

B. Royalty

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1. *The King.*—We get no clear picture of the life of the warrior in peace till we come to the king. Here we are first burdened with a superfluity of epigram and formal advice. Out of this mass and the history of the story we may get a fair picture of the early Aryan monarch.† .

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† Rājan (nom. rājā, rex); sometimes rājaputra is the equivalent of rājan. The latter appears often in composition as rāja; less often (generally as divinities), as rāj: e. g. pretarājaḥ, passim; pretarāj, viii. 14. 17. Other titles are chiefly poetical (see above, p. 77, note); but the common (viçpatiḥ) viçāmpatiḥ ‘lord of the people’ keeps the lost sense of people (for those that are governed), not that of people-caste.

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As a matter of course, the king is presented, when moral teaching is inculcated in the Epic, with a model little different from that extractable from any other didactic code. It is of passing interest to compare the personality thus predicated for ‘a good king’ with what we actually find, but the comparison must be drawn from but a fragment of the rich supply of injunctions found in the Epic.

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Take the ‘fatherly love’ alluded to above: there is not a case recorded of the real characters of the Epic where a king exhibits aught but selfish greed, passionate weakness, and regardless fulfilment of his own desires. Not only with the Kurus, who are represented as naturally sinful, but with the so-called pure Pāndus, each follows the desires of the moment, and only religious interpolations soften the characters. It is too much to expect such chiefs as these concerned themselves with the lives of their subjects. The latter were ‘protected,’ because the former were always fighting and winning battles, while the tale of Nandinī, and other distorted echoes, show in legend the real and overbearing insolence of the kings toward their subjects, even those of priestly caste. But in theory the king must be the embodiment not of protection alone, but of love and care as well. And analogous to the old-time punning derivation of putra (son) from the put-hell and the idea of saving (trā), whereby the son is a ‘saver from hell,’ we find that the ‘warrior’ (kṣatriya) is derived from two components meaning ‘he saves from destruction,’* through being a very storm-god to the foes of the kingdom,† as opposed to the universal benevolence of the priest. It is from this reason that the Epic dares to forge from Manu the bold statement that a king is equal to ten wise priests (i. 41. 27–31), a statement as un-Manu-like in tone as possible. The weighty reason given for a desirable perfection in the character of the king is that the realm will be like him: as is the king, so is his people.‡ This theory is carried out in the discussion more than once opened as to whether, of the four ages known to man, the particular age in which a king lives excuse his character, or the king himself be responsible for his age; since, if he is sinful, comes the ‘dark age’; if good, the ‘white and perfect age’ is man’s.§ These ‘ages’ are brought about by the king’s personal conduct and his restraint of vice among his subjects, for he is like the Restrainer, the god of punishment,‖ in giving force to the laws of morality. Indicative of the whole tone of Hindu life is the fact that these ‘royal laws’ set for a king are an application of the earliest extant formulated laws: the royal laws (rāja-dharma) being in no sense leges regiæ (for we have scarcely an instance of a general law formulated by the kingly power), but simply laws made by the hardening of usage into rigid rule, extending very gradually from simple moral saws to rules of conduct, and then slowly broadening, till the term includes social laws, and laws of administration. When a guide is sought, the sayings of the sage forefather Manu are quoted, who gradually became invested with a law-book that superseded the perhaps older treatise of the united sages Brihaspati and Uçanas, the first that appear to have devoted themselves particularly to the royal needs.* We must therefore deny the truth of the Epic assertion that the royal laws antedate all other regulations of Hindu law.†

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∗ B. i. 10. 1 (paid to the king); Āp. i. 9. 24. 1 (Bühler's note here suggests the right interpretation); M. xi. 128 (latest form, the case restricted to accidental death at the hands of a priest). Compare Tacitus, Germania, 21: “Luitur homicidium certo armentorum ac pecorum numero, recipitque satisfactionem universa domus.” (Since this writing, Roth has shown the earliest form of such atonement in Vedic allusions, Z. D. M. G. xli. 672).

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∗ kṣatād yo vāi trāyatī ’ti sa tasmāt kṣatriyaḥ smṛtaḥ, xii. 29. 138 ; 59. 126 ; cf. v. 132. 31 ; though elsewhere interpreted as ‘the destroyer’! The same derivation is found in B. Ā. Up. v. 13. 4 : the warrior (kṣatriya) is life ; life saves (trāyate) from hurt (kṣanitaḥ), etc.

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† āindro rājanya ucyate . . pariniṣṭhitakāryaḥ tu nṛpatiḥ paripālanāt, xii. 60. 20 ; āindro dharmaḥ kṣatriyānām brāhmaṇānām athā ’gnikaḥ, xii. 141. 64 : compare ib. 60. 12, māitro brāhmaṇa ucyate, and often.

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‡ yādṛço rājā tādṛço janaḥ, xi. 8.32.

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§ On the king’s connection with the ages, cf. xii. 91. 6, and v. 132. 12 ff.: ‘The king is fitted for godhead or for hell according as he practices virtue or vice; . . the king makes the age; . . his reward is heaven if he gives man the perfect kṛta-age; if he gives the evil kali-age, he goes to hell for a thousand years.’ An incorporation of two bad ages at once is found in xv. 31. 10 : ‘know that Duryodhana is the kali-age, Çakuni is the dvāpara-age :’ that is to say, Çakuni is not quite so sinful as Duryodhana.

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‖ yamayann asato yamaḥ, xii. 139. 103 ff., 5 (with likeness to other gods).

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† ‘The royal laws were first produced by God; after these the subsidiary duties of the other castes; all laws depend on the royal laws’: xii. 64. 21; 64. 7; 61. 1; ‘all duties exist through the royal laws’: and, just before this, ‘depend on the royal laws.’

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These ‘laws’ may be divided into two classes, embracing first general moral and social duties, and secondly special duties involved in the royal ‘objects of consideration.’ I examine each briefly. And first the tiresome rules of morality.

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2. *Royal Duties.*—How completely the savage old kings of the first poem have become demoralized into priestly subjects is seen by a glance at the first of these classes. Victory is now a question of right and wrong: ‘where right is, there is victory’;‡ an idea to be later extended on the theological side, and to give us ‘where Vishnu is, there is victory’ (see below); and paralleled by the repinings of the victorious king, who says that even the perusal of the treatises on knowledge (*buddhiçāstra*) is of little moment when one comes to die; but ‘let a man be purified in heart, let his folks and ministers reverence his acts, and he is a king, the best of kings’; for ‘it is better for a man that he even kill an Aryan than that he rule by overstepping the right’ (xii. 25. 6 ff. [on *kāla*], and iii. 34. 15). The king’s aim should be to seek first his realm’s happiness, and then his own (i. 222. 12, etc.). Compare with this the remark addressed to a king: ‘the tears of them that weep for thy wrong-ruling shall slay thee and thy herds; . . but where the tear of misery is turned into joy, there is a king’s duty nobly done.’ But to seek the happiness of the state he must first learn to control himself, ‘he must overcome love and wrath and subdue his passions’ (v. 129. 33–39). This the real kings of the Epic never did. It is, however, in accordance with such general admonitions that we find the duties soon specialized, classified, and arranged in groups. ‘Eight virtues cause a man to shine: wisdom, good family, self-restraint, knowledge of revelation, courage, not talking too much, generosity, thankfulness'; though in the same passage we learn that 'when a king does good to a man, this virtue outshines all virtues'* (v. 35. 52; 37. 32 ff.). On the whole, we find the groups of eight commandments more common, but ten commandments are also made to form a concise exposition of moral law. 'The eight-fold path of duty' has become proverbial,† but varies often: consisting, for instance, of the above, or of sacrifice, generosity, study, penance, self-restraint, truth, uprightness, harmlessness; and variating (in place of the last two) with 'mercy, and lack of greed.'‡ An imprecation in a later book on those that have 'broken the ten commandments,' without specifying them, would indicate that the ten had become also a formal group, as in Manu.§ In answer to perpetual questions in regard to duty, Mārkaṇḍeya says to the king: 'Be merciful, be kind, be fond, be not sulky, be truthful, mild, generous, glad to protect the people; do right, avoid wrong; worship the fathers and the gods; practice all this in deed, in thought, and in word' (iii. 191. 23 ff.). The contrast between such a rule and this, for example: 'Just this alone is a king's duty—to bear a rod, to be fierce, to protect' (i. 11. 17), forms one of the questions most vexing to the sages. Pages might be taken from the harping on this theme alone: what proportion exists between a righteous wrath and kingly mercy? ‖ This and the constant injunctions of purity¶ form the staple of these

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∗ *bṛhaspatyuçanaḥproktāir nayāir dhāryanti mānavāḥ* : iii. 150. 29.

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‡ *yato dharmas tato jayaḥ*, xi. 14. 9. cf. 12. But, in i. 136. 19, ‘right follows after power’! (*balaṃ dharmo ‘nuvartate*). In xii. 199. 70, the version is *yato dharmas tataḥ satyam*, etc. Compare with the following, Vāyu P. ii. 30. 80 : *rajir yatas tato dharmo yato dharmas tato jayaḥ*.

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* xii. 91. 6 ff., ib. 20 : cf. 38 ; finally the usual comparison with Yama, 44, 56 ; a summary of morals in 52-53. Compare xii. 361.9 : 'the king that does not wipe away the tears of the conquered is as sinful as the slayer of a priest.' Compare also ii. 5. 124. † mārgo dharmasyā 'ṣṭavidhaḥ : v. 35. 54, 56. ‡ ib.; the ten in 59. § daçadharmagataḥ ; the king may confiscate their property, xii. 69. 26 : cf. 59. 59-60 ; M. vii. 47-50 ; the lists may be modified by Buddhistic influence. Both 'the ten' and 'the eight' are known to the Purāṇas, e. g. in Vāyu P. i. 59. 48. ‖ cf. i. 3. 176 : to protect is a king's 'highest duty'; but no absolute 'highest duty' is given. In iii. 150. 37 it is protection ; in ii. 22. 5 it is to do good ; in iii. 183. 16 ff. it is penance ; in iii. 4. 7 it is contentment, etc. Whatever duty fills the mind is for the moment paramount. Even 'the realm' is the 'chief duty,' iii. 52. 15 ; cf. v. 34. 29-31. Most wearisome are the droning iterations in regard to protection, whereby the poet means not from outside foes alone but from the king's own greed ; and it is even recommended that the king should not set his heart on property gained by a foe's downfall, arer pratipātena, v. (39. 77, praṇi), C. 1522. The idea of 'word, thought, and deed' is sometimes extended : 'in four ways, by eye, mind, voice, and deed, let a king delight his people'; v. 34. 25 : cf. iii. 50. 9 ; 157. 18 ; 41. 20 ; he must be a father to his people : iii. 23. 7 ; i. 121. 15 ; 100. 18 ; xii. 57. 33 ; xiii. 61. 18 ; he is the warrior's Guru : i. 195. 12. ¶ iii. 119. 8 ; let him be pure ; as in xii. 58 and 59, the formal duties are preceded by a recommendation of purity.

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moral commonplaces. One example may suffice: ‘Through right the king rules; through this he keeps his subjects in order; by means of right he beholds all, when he is furnished with spies.* The king is the savior of the castes; by witchcraft and wrong king’s duties are destroyed; let the king dispense right through no love or hate; he should not be too devoted to a friend, nor too severe to a foe; he should not harm right; he should not return evil for evil,’ etc. etc.† But, of all that a king should not do (for negative and positive are always treated in the same category), general consent has selected four sins, common to man but particularly reprehensible in a king: these, according to the usual formula, are ‘women, dice, hunting, and drinking.’‡

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The only part of this formal morality that can particularly interest us is the vices it represents. Didactic strictures, form and contents, are foregone conclusions, given civilization and love for platitudes. These truths of social intercourse were almost as trite in the didactic Epic as they are to-day to us. A man should not lie, steal, murder, drink, gamble, be incontinent in passion, in sleep, in food, or in other provocatives to low living. Especially a king, since he is the norm of morals. All this is dull repetition; for when we once find out on what intellectual level we are standing, we can foretell the comple-

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* ‘Spies are a king’s eyes’: v. 34. 34 (see below). † iii. 207. 26 ff. Right (*dharma*) is now synonomous with law, now with duty. ‡ iii. 13. 7; refers particularly to the warrior-caste: cf. M. vii. 50; this is also shown by ‘they say that kings have these four vices, hunting, drink, dice, over-indulgence in sensuality (*grāmye, strībhoge*, N.), ii. 68. 20: cf. xii. 59. 60, the Manu verse. This is the antiquer form, but is kept till the latest time (cf. xiii. 157. 33), although parallel stands a fuller list, ‘women, dice, hunting, drinking, brutality in voice or deed, and wanton destruction of property’ (v. 33. 91); and elsewhere the ‘six sins’ are alluded to (i. 49. 16, *ṣaḍvargajin mahābuddhiḥ*: compare ii. 5. 125, *ṣaḍanarthāḥ*) as an understood group; but four is the more popular division, so again xii. 289. 26; and even five are given (in the metaphysical section, xii. 302. 55–56) as a group of inborn vices, desire, wrath, fear, sleep, *çvāsa* (‘breathing’ B. R., or gluttony). The Rāmāyaṇa gives ‘twelve faults’; seven vices, of which ‘four are from love,’ as in Manu. Compare R. ii. 109. 66; iii. 13. 3 ff. The instability of the group’s members is greater than its number; for the division into four often remains with different definitions, as ‘four let a king avoid, council with fools, pokes, wrathful men, and pilgrims’ (v. 33. 69, ‘and pilgrims’, *cāraṇaiç ca*; or *ca-araṇaiç ca*; or *açaṇaiḥ*; while for *rabha-saiḥ* read *alaçaiḥ*, N.). Ignorance, as ‘something childish,’ is of course everywhere reprehended; what the king had to learn has been discussed above; *paugaṇḍa*, xii. 90. 29, is the name given to kingly ignorance. The whole of this section treats of *dharma* (15 = M. viii. 16). Such lists are also Puranic in tone. Compare the *ṣāḍguṇya*, Ag. P. 233. 17; the *ṣaḍvarga* (vices), ib. 237. 7; the *saptāṅgaṃ rājyam*, ib. 238. 1; and *aṣṭavarga* (duties), ib. 45; the *vyasanāni* of kings, ib. 240. 26 ff. In general these Puranic lists are taken from the earlier literature, however, and offer no occasion for remark.

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mentary verses as soon as the poetic sermon begins. But how is it in the real Epic? Let us look to the vices as portrayed, and come nearer to life.

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If it be true that vices most rebuked by a people’s law are vices most loved by that people, then women and drink were the chief stumbling-blocks of the Hindus.* As the king was allowed a harem unlimited in extent, I need only say that it is well-nigh impossible to disentangle new and old in the Epic material on the royal privileges and deprivations in this particular. As illegitimate children were regarded as a matter of course, and even the priestly saints, as legends tell, were prone to seduce blameless girls, the restrictions of the law may be held to be mainly for practical purposes. Mixture of caste was regarded as an evil. Too great carelessness with women would result in the evil. Therefore it is best not to indulge in sensual pleasures of this kind indiscriminately. Moreover, is it injurious. But every town has its hall for the dancing-girls (*nartanāgāra*), and they and the music-girls of the gaming hall are chiefly prostitutes; though the palace girls are said to ‘dance by day and go home at night.’ Women are provided for noble and royal guests when they come to spend the night, and are even furnished to the priests. The number of wives a knight had depended on his means. Purity was recommended to students of the Veda and the great ascetics. The military caste was not corrupt, or, perhaps, especially given to sensuality; but it knew nothing of the practice of chastity, except as a student’s discipline. Occasionally a member of a royal house is represented as becoming an ascetic in this particular, but he is a wonder to all men.†

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∗ Strabo says that Megasthenes reports frugality, honesty, and temperance among the Hindus, but he seems to recognize their common custom of drinking. In the same fragment he denies the Hindu written laws and employment of witnesses (Fr. xv).

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† The dancing hall (iv. 22. 16) is here a part of the king’s house, but a separate building. Prostitution was a respectable profession, and, if hereditary, blameless; only men living on their wives’ beauty or on their own were scorned. Idyls like the Nala-tale and Sāvitrī-story show us an ideal decency in men that reflects great art or a simplicity anterior to anything else preserved in the Epic. The Epic’s chief and ideal hero was famous for his exploits and gallantry. Quite peculiar is the king in i. 44.9, who ‘having obtained a wife set not his heart on other women’ (*tām prāpya nā ’nyanārīṣu mano dadhe*). The Epic heroes in general are not lewd at all, but natural; and no attempt is made to hide their amours and infidelities. One woman, who has committed adultery with her friend’s husband, calmly remarks: ‘In that your husband was chosen by you, he was thereby chosen by me; for legally a friend’s husband is (the same as one’s own) husband, my beauty’ (*yadā tvayā vṛto bhartā vṛta eva tadā mayā, sakhibhartā hi dharmaṇa bhartā bhavati çobhane*: i. 83. 21). It is right to add, however, that her friend did not see the matter in that light. Purity is not a matter of principle, but of ascetic rule and statute law; intended to torment a man on the one hand, and to keep his hands off his neighbor’s goods (women) on the other.

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Hunting is reprehended in the same way that sensuality is. The law frowns on it, but it is one of the favorite amusements of the Epic kings and heroes. The later doctrine of non-cruelty to animals made the priests disparage the art, but it always flourished. Pāṇḍu himself (the genuineness of the story is not important) is spoken of as a great hunter. We need not wait for the drama to show us the king with a large retinue rushing afield for sport with the deer. In fact, if we do wait, we find far less love of real hunting than in the Epic, though the dramatic heroes have a decently sporting-like spirit (compare the verses apropos in the second act of Çakuntalā; and in general from the dramatic period note that meat is given to a guest, Utt. Rāmacar. Act iv.; and hunting everywhere implied, though it is stated that the death of animals is not allowed in a good city, Mṛcch. Act viii.). The priestly, perhaps Buddhistic, theory of protection to animals is not compatible with the real life of the Epic. ‘As to the habit of killing animals, that custom is of course allowed by the custom of killing enemies’ (i. 118. 12). The next verse declares that the slaughter of animals is a right of the king, supporting the statement by an allusion to Agastya (compare Ag. P. 240. 40). We find that after hunting they eat the carcass, as in the characteristic story of Duṣyanta (i. 69. 21). A king ‘firm in virtue and vowed to hunting’ is elsewhere spoken of as possessing two good qualities.* The king usually hunts with a train: ‘They all went out a-hunting in their chariots.’† But sometimes the king goes out alone with one horse.‡

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† i. 132. 36-8: rathāir viniryayuḥ sarve mṛgayām. The ‘fool dog’ (çvā . . . mūḍhaḥ) appears here to have been an adventitious companion of the hunting party.

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‡ When he usually meets a girl whom he seduces, persuading her that connubial union is best without religious rites. Compare i. 171. 21 ff. Other hunts are recorded in i. 221. 64 ff.; iii. 36. 45, etc. In the latter case the arrows are expressly stated to be free from poison.

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Not only killing deer, but eating meat, later a sin, is commonly indulged in. One king sends as a present ‘a great deal of meat’ (māṃsam bahu ca pāçavam); and, at a certain wedding-feast, ‘they killed all sorts of wild game and pure domestic animals, and brought (to the feast) a quantity of intoxicating liquor.’§

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∗ i. 63. 1: rājā dharmanityaḥ . . babhūva, mṛgayāṃ gantuṃ sadā dhṛtavrataḥ. Duṣyanta kills tigers with a sword (above). The hunt is usually for deer; but in Varāha P. vi. 21 a king goes out with a train ‘to kill tigers especially’ (çvāpadāni). Lion-hunting with dogs, attested by Aelian and Strabo (cf. Ktesias, I. S, Ind. Ant. X) is indicated by Mbh. ii. 40. 7, ‘like dogs about a lion.’

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§ iii. 75. 11, and iv. 72. 26-28 (uccāvacān mṛgāñ jaghnur medhyāñc ca çataçaḥ paçūn (to eat, as context shows); also surām āireyapānāni). Village or domestic animals (opposed to the tiger etc. of the forest) are

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I may add the exquisitely sober tale of the man who had to sell meat. There was a worthy man that had inherited a slaughter-house (sūnā) from his father. He was visited by a priest. The heir to butcherhood sat in the middle of the slaughter-house selling meat (venison, buffalo meat, and boar's meat), and there was such a crowd of buyers about him that the priest had to stand some time before he was seen. When gently reproved for engaging in such a sad business,* the worthy butcher earnestly replied: ‘I do indeed sell meat, but I do not eat it, and do not kill the animals. This is my inherited occupation. Therefore it is right for me to practice it. In fact, if I did not, I should do wrong.’ The tale well illustrates several phases of Hindu thought. The crowd buying of course bought to eat.†

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† iii. 207. 10 ff. The Varāha P., relating also a funny story of Dharmavyādha, makes him appear very angry at the insinuation of his son-in-law's sister that he is a meat-eater. He says he does eat meat, but he kills only one animal (paçu) a day, and will not be called a jīvahantar, retorting: pācayitvā svayaṁ cāi 'va kasmāt tvaṁ nā 'dya bhuñjase: Var. P. viii. 25 and 28. In Mbh. iii. 208. 9 Rantideva kills a large number of cows every day to be eaten. See Indo-Aryans, i. 426, where this verse is quoted.

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Even a priest may be guilty of hunting, and presumably of eating animals, if I may quote another tale in the pseudo-Epic (xii. 168. 29 ff. to 172. 25), where we read of a ‘priest of the middle district,’ who went begging among the barbarians of the north country (udīcyāṁ diçi mlecchesu). He shortly became no better than a Dasyu (northern barbarian) or wild robber. But by and bye another priest came up to the same county, and found him armed with bow and arrows and covered with blood. Being heartily reproved for his bad ways, the first priest left and went to sea to make money by trading, since ‘he was poor and did not know the Veda,’ and had set his soul on making money. His course is not held up for our edification, however.‡

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‡ Eating meat of kine is forbidden, but the earlier law allowed it. In the ceremony for the dead, gavya may be interpreted ‘beef’ in V. P. iii. 16. 1, but (comparing M.) is probably ‘cow's milk’ (compare Wilson's note). Vās. iv. 8: brāhmaṇāya vā rājanyāya vā ’bhyāgatāya mahokṣāṇam . . pacet. At the madhuparka ceremony meat is always allowed (Çāṅkh. G. S. ii. 16. 1, from Manu, as Vās. iv. 5–6; M. v. 41).

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And so (with vices as with moral saws, to show not cases, but examples) we come to the next great vice, drinking. We

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the cow, goat, man, sheep, horse, ass, and mule (Vāyu P. i. 9. 42). mrga is a generic term for game; thus the tiger is the king of mrgas: e. g. A. P. 19. 27.

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∗ The priestly law tries to impress the sin of eating meat by a pun—‘Me-eat shall he in the next life whose meat I eat here’ (Lanman to Manu v. 55: cf. Mbh. xiii. 116. 35; the same pun in māṁ dhāsyati = Māndhātā, iii. 126. 30). The Vāyu Purāṇa also gives the usual māṁsasya māśnatvam, ii. 26. 23.

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need not go to the Harivaṁśa to find all the forbidden pleasures indulged in. Men and women drink freely, and only in didactic portions are such practices decried. They drank at the wedding mentioned above the worst sort of distilled liquors. There were many kinds of simple wines and distilled drinks, different for men and women, since the women prefer a sweeter sort than the men.* Intoxicating liquors were used on all festal occasions. A king gives a dinner to the priests, and many women come and eat and drink ‘just as they like.’ A grand festival is held, and men and women go out with dance and music and drink. The chief hero gets completely intoxicated (kṣība). Again, the royal family in another town make a great river picnic. Here also they have music of harp and flute and tambourine. They dance and they sing. The women grow very gay. They begin to get drunk. They ‘reel from drunkenness;’ they ‘give away their jewels and their garments; play in the woods and run into the water; begin to laugh and sing and jeer and quarrel, and tell each other secrets.’† When a city is about to be besieged, no drinking and dancing is permitted; the dancing girls are turned out, and drink is forbidden.‡ Krishna and Arjuna both sit on their seats in an intoxicated state when they receive the Kurus’ ambassador.§

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Evidently the rule was first made for the priest, and then extended in the interest of morality to the other castes. There were always certain permitted intoxicating drinks, the number allowed increasing with the lateness of the time from which the law-book comes. In the Epic it is a newly promulgated divine law that ‘from this time on a priest that drinks surā shall be considered blamable, just like a murderer of a priest.’‖

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The next great sin of the Hindus (if, indeed, this be not a pan-Aryan vice) is gambling; and here we have not ignorance of forbidding rules on the part of the warrior, but direct contradiction offered by him to such rules.

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∗ kathaṁ hi pītvā mādhvīkaṁ pītvā ca madhumādhavīm, lobhaṁ sāuvīrake kuryān nārī kā cid iti smaret, iii. 278. 40 (cf. 39). † i. 148. 5 ff.; 219. 7; 222. 21 ff.; iv. 15.

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⁷ Compare Indo-Aryans, loc. cit. ‡ iii. 15.

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¹³ Impaling is the penalty for drinking or making surā against the law in xvi. 1. 31 (yaç ca no viditaṁ kuryāt peyaṁ kaç cin naraḥ kva cit, jīvan sa çūlam ārohet svayaṁkṛtvā sa bāndhavaḥ). § v. 52. 5: ubhāu madhvāsavakṣībāu. Compare for divine drunkenness v. 98. 14: bhavanam paçya vāruṇyaṁ yad etat sarvakāñcanam, yat prāpya suratāṁ prāptāḥ surāḥ surapateḥ sakhe: a vulgar pun on suras, gods, and surā, intoxicating liquor (comm. vāruṇyaṁ vāruṇyāḥ surāyāḥ). ‖ i. 76. 67: yo brāhmaṇo ‘dyaprabhṛti ‘ha kaç cin mohāt surāṁ pāsyati mandabuddhir apetadharmā brāhmaṇā cā ‘va sa syād . . garhitaḥ. But the priests seem to be victims of vice till the latest time; ‘gamblers and tipplers, singers, and traders’ (vānijaka) are here (as in M. iii. 151 ff.) apāṅkteya priests (e. g. Vāyu P. ii. 21. 32 ff.). As usual, it is the city and court priests that seem chiefly to offend.

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The game of dice was an old Vedic amusement, and we have in the Rig-Veda a ‘gambler’s lament,’ and an allusion to the public gaming-house.* That same gambling-hall that ruined him survived through all periods of the Hindu’s growth. Tales are told, precepts are given, in vain. The sage points to the moral of history: ‘kings have ruined themselves by gambling;’ but the king-warrior triumphantly quotes ‘usage’ and silences the adviser. The law distinguishes between playing with animate and with inanimate things, showing that baiting and prize-fighting were common.† But the Epic confines ‘playing’ to two things, in hyperbole to war, and in matter of fact to gambling. The law yielded a point at last, and, after vain protests, we find in the legal enactments that dice-play is sanctioned, and the ‘state gambling-hall’ erected under police supervision, the revenue from it going into the royal treasury.‡ In the Epic, where the kings always play dice as a matter of course, the only crime in playing is cheating, or ‘using magic.’ In the didactic Epic alone is the game forbidden; but we are told that ‘the bad kings (*kurājānaḥ*) of old always practiced woe-bringing gambling and deer-slaying’ (v. 90. 56). The whole plot of the Epic turns on a game of dice. The king plays away all he has, wealth, crown, brothers, and self; then his wife. A nice point is here raised by the interested parties, as to whether he could rightly stake his wife, after he had himself become a slave by staking and losing himself, ‘since slaves own nothing.’ The legal light of the court declared that he could not; but it was generally conceded that the queen was thereby really lost, and became a slave. The only anger is caused by the discovery that all the game had been deceitful (see Sabhā). This same king, however, afterwards becomes a courtier at another’s court, and assumes the rôle of a gambler by profession, ‘in order to please the king and his ministers’ by casting dice. ‘I shall,’ he says, ‘become a dice-mad, play-loving courtier, and with the bejeweled holders fling out the charming beryl, gold, and ivory dice, dotted black and red.’* And so, in respect of this vice, we can say with Tacitus: aleam sobrii inter seria exercent, tanta lucrandi perdendive temeritate ut cum omnia defecerunt extremo ac novissimo iactu de libertate et de corpore contendant; victus voluntariam servitutem adit (Germ. 24).

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∗ R. V. x. 34; A. V. vii. 50, 51; vii. 109. 1; Muir, Hymns from the Rig and Atharvan, J. R. A. S., N. S., ii. 31.

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† Dice-playing is forbidden, M. iv. 74; a son is not liable for his dead father’s gambling debts, ib. viii. 159; G. xii. 41; gambling with dice, prize-fighting, and drinking, are strictly forbidden, M. ix. 220-228 (late). *samāhūta* in the Epic is ‘challenged to play dice,’ ii. 48. 19; cf. 49. 39.

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‡ The law-book of Āpastamba says that a table shall be set up in the assembly-hall, and respectable members of the three Aryan castes may meet there and play dice. They pay (according to the commentator) something to the keeper of the table, and he pays to the king a regular sum for the privilege of keeping the table. Nārada (Jolly, xvi.) shows a fuller development, and makes a different provision: as, for example, that the keeper gets ten per cent. on the money staked. The earlier text of Āp. reads: *sabhāyā madhye ‘dhidevanam uddhṛtyā ‘kṣān nivapet (nir-); āryāḥ . . dīvitāraḥ syuḥ*, Āp. ii. 10. 25. 12 ff. It is added that the dice shall be of even number and of *vibhitaka*. In the later Nārada, the only sin thought of in connection with gaming is dishonest practice, e. g. using false dice, or playing in other places than at the royal tables, for the play was now a monopoly of the king. Compare Ācv. G. S. ii. 7.

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¹⁰ The practice in Nārada agrees with the rule of A. P. 256. 49 ff. But there the *dhūrtakitava* gives up to the keeper of the hall five or ten per cent. of his winnings according to their amount. The game is a monopoly (ib. 47) of the king. Cheats are here branded and banished.

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Four stages of development appear to have been passed through. In the first, gambling is generally practiced, and, casually, privately condemned when the result is bad. In the second, it is generally practiced, but the law begins to note its evils, and condemns it in mild admonitious language. In the third, it is generally practiced, but the law condemns it strongly, regards it as a state crime, and banishes the offenders. In the fourth, it is generally practiced, and the law takes it in charge, patronizes it, gives the king a revenue from it, and makes it a crime to play anywhere but where the king shall get his per cent. from the profits.†

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† The Rig Veda; Manu and the Epic sages; Mānavaçāstra, ix. 220 ff.; Āpastamba and Nārada—these illustrate the progression. The verse in Āpastamba must be later than the (spurious) passage in Manu, and is probably interpolated, as recognition of state gambling-tables postdates the Sūtra period. The Puranic use shows that gaming is assumed as common. Compare A. P. above, and 258. 79: vyuṣṭāyām udite sūrye dyūte jayam avāpnuyāt; and the quarrel over the game in V. P., v. 28.

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‘The king and the priest uphold the (moral) order in the world,’ said the priest living before the Epic,‡ but the king enjoyed himself still, in spite of priest and law. The life of revelry indulged in by the warrior-caste, already indicated by the rules on drinking, dicing, and contests between animals, and shown by the law, is perhaps caricatured by the great carousal in the Harivaṅça, but is testified to not only by Megasthenes,* but by the description in the Epic of all the paraphernalia of pastime at court. Majestic preparations! An amphitheatre for a joust at arms, moated and walled like a gated city;† a casino by the riverside‡ for the amusement of the princes; an amusement whenever any event offers an excuse;§ meat and wine at every festival; drunkenness, gambling, and love, the enjoyments of peace—what use to quote the sage's rule that a man shall not drink, shall not eat meat, shall not gamble, and shall be continent? Such rules were made by the priest, and for the priest; till a later age, influenced by modern feeling, extended them to the other castes, and interpolated them upon the early Epic.‖

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∗ sabhāstāro bhaviṣyāmi . . matākṣaḥ priyadevaṇaḥ . . vāidūryān kāñcanān dāntān phalāir jyotīrasāiḥ saha, kṛṣṇākṣāl lohitākṣāñc ca nirvartsyāmi manoramān. The verb shows the casting out of the dice, and the commentator says the preposition ‘with’ refers to the means of casting, and defines phalāḥ as cāristhāpanārthāni koṣṭhayuktāni kāṣṭhādimayāni phalakāni, seeming to have in mind hollowed vessels for rattling the dice. I am rather doubtful about construing saha as expressing teṣāṁ (phalānām) nirvartanakaranam, but cannot here translate phala as (‘Auge auf sinem Würfel’ (so B. R.), or take it alone as ‘on the boards,’ with jyotis as another kind of dice. The comm. would make the words for materials refer to color, blue, yellow, red, and white (resolving jyotīrasāiḥ) but I cannot follow him (iv. 1. 25). Simple dicing, not draughts on ‘boards,’ seems meant. The ordinary term for the dice-board is asphura; for the bet made, glaha : ii. 56. 3-4. Nala as akṣapriyaḥ is to be compared with dyūtapriyaḥ (ii. 48. 19) of Yudhishthira, here called priyadevaṇaḥ, Comm. krīḍāpriyaḥ.

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‡ dhṛtavratāu, Ҫat. Br. v. 4. 4. 5 (compare G. viii. 1).

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∗ πέμπτον (μέρος) ἐστὶ τὸ τῶν πολεμιστῶν οἷς τὸν ἄλλον χρόνον ἐν σχολῇ καὶ πότοις ὁ βίος ἐστὶν ἐκ τοῦ βασιλικοῦ διαιτωμένοις, etc.: Strabo, xv. p. 707.

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† prākāra, dvāra, toraṇa, parikhā, i. 185. 17 ff. Compare the public games in V. P. v. 20.

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‡ i. 128. 33, udakakrīḍana.

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§ In i. 221. 69 the king makes an occasion of ‘giving gifts’ out of the fact that his brother has a son born.

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‖ Outside the law, in all profane writings, rules restricting food and drink are found. Thus, as B. ii. 1. 21 limits the use of intoxicating liquor for all twice-born castes, so does R. ii. 34. 27; 80. 4; iv. 16. 31 ff., v. 34. 10, for priest and warrior, limit eating, suppressing meat and madhu ‘wine.’ ‘The king is lord of all but the priest’ (G. xi. 1); and in this respect the latter enforced his rules gradually, so that it may be that the non-priestly castes were slowly led to temperance. Luxury is forbidden to the priest who is out in the world (ii. 21. 42), but the caste as a whole led an easy and comfortable life, and allusions are plenty to show how delicately cared for and fastidious the town-priests were (cf. e. g. iii. 92. 20). Even here we have no great asceticism as a rule. So, still more, a quasi-asceticism may be enjoined on the king and warrior; but I miss the sign of it in popular poetry, and distrust it in didactic epigrams. To speak the truth and not to steal seem to be in India the earliest moralities enjoined. Drinking and gambling and lust are frowned upon much later, and by priests. But in those first two, the ‘moral sense’ originated (not from the priests) from mutual advantages, and needs of social life; for until the most advanced moral code there is no thought of an abstract wrong in lying or stealing. Indeed, in the former case, certain occasions are mentioned where for utilitarian reasons lying is approved and commanded. For instance, one may lie to a woman at the time of marriage, or to escape pain or loss of one’s property or loss of life. I confess I do not see the matter in the light in which Müller, ‘India,’ p. 34 ff., puts it (see ib. note D, p. 272, for citations). Such expressions as that of the V. P., ‘the earth is upheld by truth’ (iii. 12) have no great moral significance, weighed against the fact that truth to the Aryan Hindu warrior is a relative term; ‘a lie is truth if it pays to lie’ is the underlying basis of his morality in this regard. Compare viii. 69. 32 : bhavet satyam avaktavyam vaktavyam anṛtam bhavet, yatrā ’nṛtam bhavet satyam, etc.; 57, yat syād ahiṃsāsaṃyuktaṃ sa dharma iti niścayaḥ; compare the

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If we look at the legitimate amusements of the warrior-caste, we shall find very little but telling tales of war, song, dance, mime-acting, later the drama, and practice of arms in sport or in earnest.* Sometimes sport was combined with a serious intent, as in the tournament, where the valor of the princes is tested, and they through this test become enrolled as worthy members of the caste (i. 134 ff.). As boys, the princes' one amusement, outside of running, leaping, practice in arms, and rough horse-play with each other, seems to have consisted of a game played with a ball or hockey (*viṭā*) which they roll or toss about.† The girls danced and played ball or doll (see Appendix). The sport of the cow-boys in the later times of the Krishna legends appears to have consisted in scandalizing and abusing the respectable inhabitants, and getting drunk, thus offering an interesting parallel to the life of our Western cow-boys.‡

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3. *Royal Occupations.*—Alertness is perhaps the word best suited to describe the faculty prized in a king. ‘He should be ready for the future, firm in the present, and understand what still remains (to be done) from the past.’§ Thus he will be able to protect his Aryan and un-Aryan subjects. Not to rob these, and to be brave and pure, defines his negative and positive duty toward his people.‖

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whole section and ib. 70. 51 for cause. It was not Bhīshma's adherence to truth so much as his adherence to chivalric rule that prevented him from slaying a woman. It is, however, true that in legend and precept truth holds a high place; only we should add that moral precepts often hide an opposite practice, and that a simple lie (not perjury) was not in and for itself regarded as wrong (the Christian idea); its sin depended on circumstances. But compare Vāyu P. i. 10. 38 ; 59. 40.

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∗ Compare vii. 57. 4 : (numbers of people at a horse-sacrifice) naṭanartakagandharvāiḥ pūrṇakāir vardhamānakāiḥ, nityodyogāiç, ca krīḍadbhis tatra sma pariharṣitāḥ. † krīḍanto viṭayā (bālāḥ) paryacaran, i. 131. 17 (cf. krīḍanaka). ‡ The cow-boy Krishna, refusing homage to the old god Indra, says : ‘we are not shut in with doors, nor confined within wall; we have neither fields nor houses; we wander about happily wherever we list, traveling in our wagons. . . Brahmans offer worship with prayer; cultivators of the earth adore their landmarks; but we who tend our herds in the forests and mountains should worship them and our kine [alone].’ The same cow-boy and his brother once ‘went along sportively, looking like two young elephants. As they roamed about they saw a washerman coloring clothes, and with smiling countenances they went and threw down some of his fine linen. The washerman . . provoked the lads with loud and scurrilous abuse, until Krishna struck him down with his head to the ground, and killed him. Then, taking the clothes, they went their way’ (Wilson's translation of V. P. v. 10, 20; pp. 524, 548). Such pictures may represent actual scenes from the life of the cow-boys, though these narratives are meant to glorify the cow-boy god. § v. 39. 55; M. vii. 178-179. ‖ iii. 150. 37; v. 72. 44; 73. 27; 37. 23; xv. 10. 42.

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But when we come to a closer examination of what the general ‘protection’ implies, we find that there is an endless complexity of subjects to which the king must pay attention. It were little better than to schedule the possible combinations of all conceivable military, judicial, civil, and domestic affairs, were we to follow closely the lists given to the king to study. All his duties and cares are parceled out in divisions. He obtains his education by the group-system, ‘for the realm is a huge concern,’ and needs to be studied in all its particulars, each under its proper head.*

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So technical have become in the late and pseudo-Epic some of the groups of objects of consideration, that, finding them unexplained or over-explained by the commentator, we are unable to analyze them, unless by chance they be repeated with more light. So we read simply: ‘Let the king have the six royal qualities, and know the seven means.’ The commentator gives us the solution. The six royal qualities are eloquence, bravery, wisdom, learning, (knowledge of) polity, and of (sacred) music.† The ‘seven means’ would be unintelligible, for only ‘four means’ (of conduct with other unfriendly kings) are recognized in the legal codes (pacification, generosity, intrigue, and punishment); but to these are here added three: namely, poison, incantations, and magic.

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† Gain, Right, and Desire, it has just been stated, are the main-springs of human action; these the king should practice in loco (kāle) : ii. 5. 21 ff. The most common ‘group of six’ is called the ‘six-fold-care’ (not to be confused with the ‘six-fold array’ of the army, described below), and consists of six specially important topics for the king: namely, alliance, war, marching, encampment, partition of forces, and seeking allies. Compare ii. 5. 8; v. 38. 24 (xii. 59. 32); xii. 69. 64 ff.; xv. 6. 5 (ṣāḍguṇyam āyattam); M. vii. 160; Yājñ. i. 346.

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The Epic outstrips the groups with which we are familiar in many other particulars, some of which I shall give in full, dry as they are to any but one interested in succinct tabulation; for though they teach us not much (containing generally only such information as might be antecedently expected), they yet show us, as we pick our way through them, how thoroughly the Hindu sages had encircled the king with a net of painful rules, and give us at the same time a glimpse of that methodic nature of the Hindu mind which proved so valuable in other provinces, while it seems so useless in this. Such categories are usually reeled off in the form of catechumenical instructions addressed to a patient king; and they belong all to the middle period of the Epic, when it was made into a book of wisdom.‡

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∗ xii. 58. 21; sumahat tantram; so ib. 56. 2, (dharmam) mahāntam bhāram manye.

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‡ Some of these lists presuppose not only great technical dexterity in interpretation, but also a sense of less serious meaning than belongs to

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There are ‘eight acts’ for a king to attend to (that is, eight subjects to care for in time of peace): agriculture, trade, roads, forts, bridges, elephant-training, taxes, and the occupation of deserted places.* Some of these are embraced in an unintelligible ‘group of fourteen’ just preceding, objects to be attended to when the land is held by the enemy: as, for instance, the country, town, forts, elephants, liquor-saloons, etc. (commentator); and in another place we find again that there are ‘ten objects of consideration,’ explained by the same guide to be the king’s own and his foe’s ministers, realm, fortress, treasury, and army.†

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† xii. 57. 18, vettā ca daçavargasya sthānavṛddhikṣayātmanaḥ. The ‘sixfold division’ in a near and subsequent section (ṣaḍvargo nītiḥ) is said to mean self, time-and-clime, means, duty, minister, cause, xii. 59. 32 : compare the following for the whole list of duties (33–78). The threefold division (kṣaya, sthāna, vṛddhi) occurs independently in xii. 69. 64 ff.; where also duty, gain, and desire, as usual, form another triad (so v. 39. 40) : and ‘guarding the people well’ is at the end the sum of it all, according to Angiras; the section closing with the oft-repeated discussion of the relation between the king and his age: whether the king influences his age, or the age in which he lives determines the character of the king (79 ff.). Here, too, are the ‘seven divisions of the kingdom’ already alluded to (see above, p. 45, and again in text, ii. 5. 23) : namely, the king, his officials, allies, wealth, realm, fort, and army. With xii. 59. 35 ff. compare xv. 6. 1 ff. Note that in xv. 5. 8 we have ‘an eight-fold state,’ aṣṭāngam rājyam, explained as ‘king, ministers, etc.’ (i. e. seven); but, I think, really confused with the ‘army of eight.’ Most of these groups occur explained in the late polity-books, such as Kām. Nīt. and Nītiprak.

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most of them. They appear almost in the light of riddles or implied conundrums, and have a painful resemblance to Mother Goose verses, reminding us of ‘two legs sat upon three legs,’ etc. Nevertheless, when we find the interpretation, it partakes of no sportiveness. But I fancy the priests amused themselves in a sober way with such verses; there can, at least, be no Sūtra-like technicality about them. A sage will give us an example from v. 33. 44: ‘By means of one perceiving two and subduing three by means of four while conquering five, understanding six and forsaking seven—be thou blessed.’ It does not clear the matter up much to insert definite articles or the gender of each numeral; and in fact the commentator does not know what the verse means, for he explains it by different guesses, the cleverest being as follows: ‘The verse may mean: the king shall by means of one undivided intelligence discern the two sets of things, those to be done and not to be done; and by means of the four methods of subduing foes (soothing, bribery, dissension, force) get into his power the three kinds of men, friends, neutrals, foes; while he shall subdue the five organs of sense and know the six conditions of a state (alliance, rupture, etc.), and leave the seven vices, women, dice, hunting, drinking, harsh words, cruel punishment, injury to property—and then he will be happy.’ But in ib. 36. 48 there are six organs. One such specimen suffices.

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∗ ii. 5. 22; these ‘acts’ are said to be ‘declared by the code.’ The last (śūnyānām niveṣanam) may perhaps be colonization. Compare M. vii. 154, where the same (unexplained) group is mentioned, and expounded by the there commentators in the way of Nīl., and otherwise. (See notes to M. in Bühler’s and B. H.’s translations.)

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Perhaps the most interesting group is that of the state officials (which comes under the rubric of categories of occupations, because, like most of the others, the king has to be occupied with them), since they can be compared with the list of royal officials handed down by Megasthenes. The latter says that there are certain high state officers, partly civil and partly military, and these make in his report a special class by themselves.

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In Nārada’s speech, quoted above from the second book, we find seven general state officers—the inspector of the fort, the inspector of the army, the inspector of laws, the commander-in-chief of the army, the chief priest, physician, and astrologer—offered as a group explanatory of the functions of certain officials that represent the king (comm. to ii. 5. 23); but a fuller group of administrative officials is implied by the text itself in a following verse, where a group of eighteen officials is plainly signified by the mention of ‘eighteen objects which the king should have carefully watched by spies.’ Assuming that the commentator is right in explaining this group by a long quotation from a law-book, we find that the people here intended embrace those members of the council meant by Megasthenes, and others who were not probably included under his sixth division, but may be understood of those that guard the realm,* as viceroys in different parts of the kingdom. The list is as follows: the chief councillor, the chief priest, the crown-prince, the commander-in-chief of the army, the chamberlain, the overseer of the harem, the overseer of prisons, the chief steward, the person having general superintendence of what ought or ought not to be done in affairs, the chief judge, the overseer of the city, the chief engineer, the overseer of justice, the president of the assembly, the guardian of the army (commissioner) or of punishment (criminal judge?), the guardian (perhaps overseer) of forts, the guardian of the boundary, the guardian of the forest.

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All these officers in his foe’s realm the king must have watched by spies, and all of them in his own realm, except the chief councillor (prime minister) and high-priest (because these are of the priestly caste), and his once son, the crown-prince. The list will give us an idea of the internal policy of the state, though no great antiquity can be claimed for it.*

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∗ It seems to me that Müller goes too far in supposing that the officials set over villages are merely revenue officers with police jurisdiction (‘India,’ p. 47). The Praçna Up. alludes to these: ‘as a king commands his officers, saying, rule over these or those villages’ (iii. 4); the Bṛhat Saṃhitā speaks of the ‘king and his followers’ who destroy the land (xix. 3); and the Epic regards them as viceroys of state. When villages were not tributary, they may have been totally independent (avilabdha), they may have had no governor (Bṛ. Sam. xvii. 14, comm., Kern); but when it was possible for Bhīma to give fourteen villages offhand to a messenger (viii. 76. 40), we can scarcely suppose that the ‘self-government’ of which Müller speaks could have been a real autonomy, or have made them independent in their laws.

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