Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c4.t4.50

c4.t4.50

The *purohita*'s character as a Brāhmaṇa is seldom, if ever, lost sight of in the stories. If they represent truth, and there is no reason to doubt, he, being a Brāhmaṇa, was greatly a lover of wealth, a greedy fellow. Fick⁵ is right in asserting that 'a position of worldly power was neither necessarily connected with his office as house-priest nor determined by proper regulations; the political power of the *purohita* was purely individual and had its source wholly and solely in the personal influence which he obtained over the king through his function as sacrificer and magician." On occasions like the consecration of a king, he is the leader of the officers of the state as we saw before. At one place⁶ he is the performer of a festival called *Hatthimaṅgalam* a royal elephant festival... And this was a lucrative performance, since all the trappings and appointments, the entire jewellery, of the elephants which came into the place of festival, fell to the lot of this performer by right. By this means he gained as much as ten millions (*koṭi*) at each festival. This may have been a hereditary office as indicated in the story.