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Nagananda has an amusing passage relating to an intoxicated courtier in search for his mistress, — a slave girl Drinking was almost universal in royal courts and the ladies of the royal household did not refuse their share • The Katha Sarit Sagara (Chap. 1 10), thus describes the drinking hall of king Naravahana Datta. " It was full of goblets, made of various jewels, which looked like so many expanded lotuses, and strewn with many flowers, so that it resembled a lotus bed in a garden ; and it was crowded with ladies with jugs full of intoxi- cating liquor who made it flash like the nectar appear- ing in the arms of Garuda. There they drank wine that snaps those fetters of shame that bind the ladies of the royal household, — wine the essence of love's life, the ally of merriment!" The mass of the middle classes and of the cultivating classes of Hindus ab- stained from drink as they do to this day. Other vices of large towns were not unknown fn Ujjayini. " At this time of evening/' says Maitreya in Digitized by Google CHAP. XIV.] EARLY PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 469 Mirchchhakati, " the royal road is crowded with loose persons, with cut-throats, courtiers and courtesans;" and elsewhere in the same play we have a rather elaborate account of a theft performed in Ch&rudatta's house, and the footsteps of the night watch were heard, (as is often the case with the police of the present day), just after the thief had finished his job, and retired with the booty I In another place in the same play we are told, " The road is solitary^ save where the watch Performs his wonted round : the silent night, Fit season only for dishonest acts, Should find us not abroad." Wilson. Wealthy citizens rejoiced in a large number of re- tainers, in spacious courts and in unquestioning hospi- tality. We have in Mrichchhakati a somewhat exag- gerated account of a wealthy house, from which we can form some conception of wealthy houses generally. The outer door is pretty, the threshold is colored and well swept and watered, flowers and garlands are hung over the gate, and the doorway is a lofty arch. On entering the first court is seen a line of white buildings, the walls covered with stucco, the steps made of various stones, and the crystal windows looking down on the streets of the city. Inside the second court are carriages oxen and horses and elephants, fed by their mahouts with rice and glue ! In the third court is the assembly hall where the visitors are received ; in the fourth there Digitized 470 * PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. is music with dancing, and in the fifth is the kitchen. In the sixth court live artists and jewellers employed in the house, and in the seventh is an aviary. In the eighth court lives the owner of the house. It is not likely that any but the most wealthy indulged in such profuse magnificence ; — but the account gives us some idea of pompous Hindu households. Behind the house is a lovely garden such as was the delight of Hindu ladies of olden days. Sakuntala was fond of watering her plants herself, and the Yaksha's wife used to sit in her garden and think of her absent lord. Besides such extensive residences inside the town, wealthy men had their garden houses and villas in the suburbs, " far beyond the city," and a taste for such rural villas continues to the present day. Among the possessions of wealthy mem, slaves were reckoned as a very important item. Domestic slaves were bought and sold in ancient India as in every ancient country, and probably most domestic servants in ancient times were slaves. In Mrichchlia- kati a ruined gambler proposes to sell himself in order to pay his debt. Still more remarkable is another passage in which the paramour of a female slave asks her what money will procure her manumission from her mistress. The well-known story of Harishchandra goes on to say that the Raja sold his wife and child and himself as slaves to pay off a ruthless Brahman's debt, and there are numerous other stories to the same Digitized by Google CHAP. XIV.] EARLY PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 471 effect. Slavery indeed continued in India until recent times. The ordinary conveyance of well-to-do persons in towns was a kind of covered litter drawn by oxen. Both men and women travelled in such litters, and Vasantasend went in such a litter to meet her be- loved ChArudatta in a garden outside the town. Any one who has travelled in a bullock cart, (as the pre- sent writer has), over the rough paved streets of Ujjayini must know that the lady's journey, like the course of her true-love, was not particularly smooth. ♦ Horses were not unoften used as means of conveyance, and in Chapter 124 of the Kath& Sarit Sagara we find that a Brahman Devasvamin fetched his wife from her father's house, the lady being mounted on a mare, and having a maid with her. Cars drawn by horses were probably only used by kings and lords and warriors in battle, or in hunting expeditions, as we find in Sakun- talft. A solitary and invaluable picture of the practical administration of justice in the ancient Hindu times is given in Mrichchhakati. A Brahman Charudatta is falsely accused by a profligate villain with the murder of Vasantasena, the heroine of the play. The villain we should mention, calls himself the king's brother- in-law. Kings were not very particular in their amours ; and thus it happened that brothers and relations of the women of low caste whom kings took into their Digitized by Google 472 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V palaces, were provided with high places in the police. From numerous descriptions of such characters by Kalidasa and other poets, we learn that such upstarts made themselves the pests of society, obnoxious to good men, and the terror of the humble and lowly. Such a cruel upstart, V&sudeva by name, had done his best to kill Vasantasena whose love he had vainly courted before, and then falsely accused Charudatta with the crime, because the woman had loved Charu- datta The judge enters the court with the Provost and the Scribe (Kayastha), and Vasudeva enters his charge against Charudatta. The judge is unwilling to take up the case on that day, but knowing the influence of the complainant with the king, takes it up, and even puts up with his insolent behaviour in court. Charudatta is summoned. The simple and good hearted Brahman enters the court, and his description of it will amuse many a modern reader, and will also give us some idea of the imps of the law who were employed in olden days. "The prospect is but little pleasing. The court looks like a sea ; its councillors Are deep engulphed iu thought ; its tossing waves Are wrangling advocates ; its brood of monsters Are these wild animals, death's ministers. Attorneys skim like wily snakes the surface. Spies are the shell fish cowering midst its weeds, And vile informers, like the hovering curlew, Hang fluttering o'er, then pounce upon their prey. chap, xiv.] Early pauranik civilization. 473 The beach that should be justice, is unsafe, Rough, rude and broken by oppression's storms."* Wilson. We need not go into the details of the evidence, — but appearances certainly go very rriuch against Charu- datta, Nevertheless the judge refuses to believe that good man guilty of the abominable crime, and says to himself, " tt were as easy to weigh Himalaya, ford the ocean, or grasp the wind as to fix a stain on Charu- datta's reputation." But the circumstantial evidence becomes stronger, and the judge feels that by law he ought to decide against Charudatta, but nevertheless does not feel convinced as to the facts. According to his homely but forcible simile, " the points of law are sufficiently clear here, but the understanding still labours like a cow in a quagmire." In the meantime Charudatta's friend enters the court, and with him are discovered the ornaments of the woman said to be murdered. This seals Charudatta's fate. The judge presses him to speak the truth, and even threatens him, and Charudatta, heart broken at * ■ That the translator may not be thought to have had an English r'ther than an Indian court in his eye, he enumerates the terms <>f the original for the diflerent members of which it is said to consist. Man- trim, councillors; Dutas, the envoys or repiesentatives of the parties ; the wild animals, death's ministers are Ndgas and Asvas. elephants and horses employed to tread or tear condemned criminals to death ; the Chdras are spies or runners; Ndndvdsakas, disguised emissaries or informers ; and Kdyasthas are scribes by profession who discharge the duties of notaries and attornies." Wilson, Digitized by 474 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. his own disgrace, overwhelmed by the evidence which is heaped against him, and sick of life on hearing that his beloved Vasantasend is no more, confesses, as many an innocent man has confessed, to a murder he has not committed. The judge orders "The convicted culprit being a Brihman, he cannot according to Manu be put to death, but he may be banished the kingdom with his property unattached." The king however cruelly modifies this sentence into one of death. This cruel order of the king is intro- duced by the poet, as a sin which he expiates soon after. A revolution overturns his rule, he is killed in battle by an usurper, and Chirudatta is saved when on the point of being executed, and gets back his beloved Vasantasend, who had been left as dead by the cruel Vdsudeva himself, but who had not died. The infuriated mob wish to kill the base culprit, the relation of the late king, but the magnanimous Chiru- datta saves his life from the mob, and says " Set him free." "Why so?