The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c19.56

c19.56

Harem influences sometimes seriously affected the administration. A singer's daughters, Hamsi and Nāgalatā were taken by the infatuated King Cakravarman into his harem in the thirties of the tenth century A.D. Hamsi was at once designated chief queen.⁴ Her relations tended to monopolise all power and office with the result that the kingdom fell into troubles.⁴ Female intrigue, again, was one of the forces which complicated the problem of the succession on failure of direct heirs. Women were, as a rule, barred from the throne. There is indeed the case of