The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.244

c2.s5.244

of an elephant’ (v. 165. 20). The word *apātayat*, usually used as above, is often simply of the war-car as a whole (*rathād bhūmāv apātayat*, vii. 169. 14), so that we cannot tell what part is intended. We may, I think, also draw from these quotations the conclusion that the knight seldom had, or used, a seat, but generally stood in the *upastha*, probably the round hollow bottom, implied by *uḍupa* (e. g. xvi. 5. 8), car as boat, which contained breastplates of leather and metal, bows, arrows, etc., probably stored about the side (viii. 79. 5). That the driver has a seat is indicated by the term *bandhura* or *atibandhura* (e. g. vii. 36. 31; iii. 241. 31), handed down from the Vedic age, here as the seat of the driver, while (if one exists) the knight’s seat is called *talpa*, vii. 192. 68. ‘Bosom’ (*kroḍa*) rather than ‘lap’ is the commentator’s definition of *upastha* (vii. 79. 32). It itself makes a comfortable seat to repose in after one has unharnessed and seen to the horses, and wants to rest in the stable (iii. 73. 32). The commentator is certainly wrong in taking *upastha* to mean *uparibhāga* in iv. 45. 7. The *upastha* as storage-place in R. ii. 39. 20.