The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c17.78

c17.78

The king's court, consisting of feudatories, ministers, chief personages, poets,⁶ and favourites, presented a glittering spectacle. Bāṇa has given an account of Harṣa's camp at Maṇitāra on the Ajirāvatī, surrounded by the camps of renowned "subject kings" with all their separate retinues. There were numbers of elephants, horses and camels. Over the whole scene waved umbrellas with thousands of stirring chowries. It comprised four different sets of apartments, three of which, the outer ones, were filled by feudatory chiefs. In the fourth, under a pavilion, on a throne of pearl-like stone, sat the emperor with his feet resting on a foot-stool of sapphire and ruby. Yuan Chwang has described how the emperor marched to Kanauj followed by several hundreds of thousand people, along the southern bank of the Ganges, while Kumāra Rāja, attended by tens of thousands, took his place on the northern bank. The two kings led the way with their gorgeous staff of soldiers, "some also were in boats, some were on elephants, sounding drums and blowing horns, playing on flutes and harps."⁷ As in Persia, in the later Roman Empire and, under the medieval Mughals, the etiquette of the court smacked of servility. Yuan Chwang relates how on one occasion princes were prostrate at the feet of the suzerain.¹ Yet the fact of being a courtier carried some prestige. When after his reception by Harṣa, the poet Bāṇa returned home, he received an affectionate welcome and congratulations from all and was lionised in the neighbourhood.²