Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t4.17

c4.t4.17

From the origin of his post, the purohita has remained a teacher of the king. The Jātaka purohita is always the teacher, the ācariya, of the king.⁴ It often happens that the purohita or the preceptor is the teacher of the king in his youthful days, and is appointed to the post when the latter ascends to the throne.⁵ But as a rule the post being hereditary as we stated before, the king accepted the old purohita or, as it sometimes happened,⁶ his son who was his fellow-mate at the University, as his Ācariya. The intimacy thus contracted in early days remained also later on, and the two became inseparable companions, both in private and public activities.⁷