Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t2.357

c4.t2.357

⁶ One *Jātaka*, VI, pp. 49, 50, 51, GG. 195-7, 226-8, speaks of 700 wives while another I, p. 392, gives the number as 84000. As to the former, the scholiast says that the 700 wives were only favourites while others were not. The number can never be fixed. It must vary according to dismissals or new arrivals—both of which were usual. As to comparisons, we may note that Abdul Fazl speaks of ‘more than 5000 women comprising the zenana of Akbar, the Great Moghal’... *Ain-i-Akbari*, Blockman’s Trans. I, p. 44.