The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.286

c2.s5.286

More specific is the account given in the following (viii. 76. 17): ‘Six ayutāni of arrows, numberless darts, hammers, spears, knives, bhallas (also arrows), two thousand nārācas (iron arrows), three thousand pradara (arrows)—which not even a wagon drawn by six cows could carry’ (çakaṭaṃ ṣaḍgavīyam)—are here left under the care of one warrior. ‘With darts (54. 7, viçikha, vipātha; 29, pṛṣatka) and handguards, with quiver and horn and banner, with breast-plates, diadem, sword, and bow,’ is the description of a knight in his car (iv. 53. 9). In another passage (xiv. 79. 14), a knight ‘ascended the car packed with hundreds of quivers, after he had girded on his golden breast-plate and his shining helm.’ A hundred quivers, besides clubs, çataghnīs, bells, spears, spits, darts, bows, are in a car with a varūtha (viii. 11. 8). A car of priceless value is described in the (late) twelfth book, but is used for state, not for war, and appears to be merely a means of exhibiting jewels, being adorned with sapphires (masāra), crystal, and gold-plated wheels (hemanībaddhacakraḥ), while ‘all sorts of gems’ are fastened to it, so that it ‘shines like the newly risen sun.’† Compare the brief account, marked late by the meter, in the opening war-scene, where Yudhishthira has ‘a war-car like Indra’s, with golden harness, and bright with hāṭaka (gold);’‡ and also compare the car described again in the twelfth book (37. 32 ff.), where the king ‘mounts a nice new war-car covered with kambala-skins, and drawn by sixteen white cows.’ In this car Bhīma, the emperor’s brother, ‘took the reins’ (jagrāha raçmīn), as it was at a great state ceremony, and Arjuna held the white umbrella (pāṇḍuraṃ chattram) of royalty over the emperor’s head. In the same passage we find mentioned a car drawn by men: that is, the steeds were replaced by men (narayāna, ib. 40). Another description of one of these enormous war-carriages is furnished by a passage contemporaneous with or next later than the last. It is here we find a distinction (above, p. 236) formally made between war-cars and pleasure-cars;* and here perhaps the shortest yet fullest picture of the former in its greatest if not most ponderous glory. ‘Harness up (sajjīkuru ratham), the saint cried; prepare quickly thy chariot called the war-car, with weapons and banners, with a spear and a gold staff (yaṣṭi), noisy with the sound of bells, furnished with ornamental doors (yuktas toraṇakalpanāḥ, 31), gilded, supplied with hundreds of arrows; this was done, and the king placed his wife at the left of the pole (vāme dhuri), himself at the right, and laid within the car the goad, sharp-pointed, made of three sticks’ (tridaṇḍaṃ vajraṣūcyagram pratodaṃ tatra cā’dadhat)—for this was another narayāna, and the king and his wife were forced to drag the car for a great saint. Whether we may be allowed to predicate but two steeds for such a car in its normal locomotion I doubt, but these two were goaded ‘on back and hip,’ and dragged the saint about for some time without exhaustion. The ornamented doors were probably in relief, judging by a Purāṇa standard; though Epic evidence fails me.†