The Social and Military Position of the Ruling Caste in Ancient India, as Represented by the Sanskrit Epic c2.s5.341

c2.s5.341

Outside of these useful trappings† we have a number of purely ornamental ones, such as the tail-bands mentioned in viii. 34. 30. One passage unites ‘tail-bands, plumes, breast-harness, bits, ornaments of silver, brass, and gold’; but the last are not explained.‡ The plume, therefore, was not wanting, made of the tail of the *bos grunniens*, which is usually an adornment of the palace, one of the royal insignia, carried by princes upon the field (*cāmara* or *vyajana* and *vāla* together); here an ornament of the horse, probably worn on the head;§ often with the *kakṣā* or *kakṣyā*, the girdle or girth-band, which, like all else capable of decoration, is represented as adorned and bejeweled. The manes, *saṭā*, must be long.‖