The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c17.107

c17.107

Bâṇa's Kâdambarî throws some additional light on the practice of the age. Its account of an Ujjain prince's education is obviously romantic but is not without some bearing on actual facts. For his son Candrâpîḍa, six years old, King Târâpîḍa built "a palace of learning outside the city, stretching half a league along the Siprâ river . . . with stables for horses and palanquins close by and a gymnasium constructed beneath. He took infinite pains in gathering there teachers of every science, and having placed the boy there, like a young lion in a cage, forbidding all egress surrounding him with a suite composed mainly of the sons of his teachers, removing every allurement to the sports of boyhood, and on an auspicious day he entrusted him, together with Vaiśampâyana (the minister’s son), to masters that they might acquire all knowledge.” Every day the king visited the prince. In an eloquent, high-flown passage, the novelist relates that the prince mastered the sciences, arts, crafts, music, the Epics, the Purâṇas, foreign languages, all kinds of writing, prosody, etc., etc.¹ On the completion of his education in ten years the prince was asked ceremoniously to return home.² Escorted by “three thousand princes, all sons of anointed kings,” the prince passed in a procession through the city,³ and then entered the court to be received affectionately by his parents and all present.⁴ Thenceforward, the prince lives a life of comfort, even luxury. He goes out to hunt. He has numerous attendants. Among others, Patralekhâ, daughter of the “king” of Kulûta, captured in war in her childhood, was appointed his betel-bearer by his mother and became his companion and confidential advisor.⁵ The king makes over the throne to him and has him regularly anointed with the help of feudatories. Before his consecration, the minister Śukanâsa gives him a lengthy discourse on his position and duties.⁶