Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.247

v1.c5.247

¹ All three are bards and singers of princes' praises. The vaitālika calls out the hours of the day, and recites blessings; the māgadha is, according to the scholiast, a genealogist. In vi, 127.3, indeed, he remarks that the vaitālika is vamçāvalikīrtaka. The most important is the sūta, chariot-driver to the prince, and likewise one that knows and gives a masterly rendering of old songs and traditions, especially of the great deeds of the ruler and his forefathers. It was from this caste, perhaps, that came the makers and carriers of that old song poetry, fragments of which have been strung together in the Epic, especially in the Mahābhārata, but alas! not without having been often mutilated thereby and distorted. The modern bhāts (and chārans) or bards, among the Rājputs (and Marathas), about whom Devendra Das in his *Sketches of Hindoo Life*, pp. 179 ff., gives a very good account, are undoubtedly their very near kindred, if not their descendants. These bards enjoy among the Rājputs greater consideration than the Brahmans (Tod, *Rajasthan*, i, 30; 217; cp. ii, 127 below. D. N. Das, *Sketches of Hindoo Life*, 179). A bhāt was chief representative and army commander of Darjan Sal of Kotah (Tod, ii, 535). Their person is sacred (i, 742; ii, 182; 674 ff.). Mārkaṇḍeyapur., vi, 23 ff. shows the pride of the sūta, and that to kill him is looked on as Brahman murder. He occupies holy (standing in connection with the Veda?) or Brahmanic rank (brāhmam padam 30, brāhmam sthānam 32); and these expressions would hardly be called "holy place". Cp. further Crooke, *The North-Western Provinces*, 205, 224, and especially my Kauṭilya, index under sūtas. As to the power the bards held through their knowledge of songs see Tod, i, p. xi; 672; ii, 697.