Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t2.354

c4.t2.354

The harem (*antapura : orodha*) must have been a distinctive feature of the palace, and occupied a large space. It is described as well-built, with earth and other plasters and suffused with sweet fragrance and beautiful.⁴ It is said to have comprised sixteen thousand dancing girls (*solasahassanā-ṭakitthiyo*).⁵ The high number is only conventional and cannot be taken as true, though we may believe that it went up to hundreds.⁶ These were clearly distinguished from one who was the chief queen ‘*aggamahesī*’ and who commanded a respectable status both in and out of the palace, being presumably the mother of the heir-apparent.⁷ It is not, as it may seem, curious or even unimaginable that these lefthanded ladies were freely at the disposal of the king. They are not said to dance by day and go home at night as the Epic says,⁸ but they were a part and parcel of the royal seraglio.⁹ It is again not incomprehensible that these dancing girls were often handed down from father to son when the former passed over the kingdom to the latter.¹⁰ The harem was not at all despised. The king was free, it seems, to bring in any new girl without much distinction of caste or class—a flower girl, a country girl or any picked out from the wayside.¹¹ The only thing that was to be considered was, that "she must be unmarried (*avāvatā*)." He dared not take any who had her husband living.¹ The post of the Chief Queen does not seem to be permanently reserved for one and the same only. It must depend on the fancy of the king.² The rivalries and jealousies of co-wives in the harem did exist.³