Social Life
With the Aryan expansion over practically the whole of India, came a wide diversity of social conditions. Customs not approved in the Gangetic Doab were admitted as good usage in the north beyond the river Sarasvati or the south beyond the Narmada. Women, for example, enjoyed in southern India certain privileges denied to their mid-Indian sisters. The wife in the south was allowed to eat in the company of her husband, and restrictions on the marriage of cognates were not so strict in the south as in the north. Widow marriage and Levirate had not fallen into disuse even in the Ganges valley, and burning of widows was not sanctioned by the orthodox lawgivers. But the practice of Sati could not have been unknown in the north-west. In the epic we hear of the self-immolation of a princess born in the Madra country in the Punjab, and Greek writers refer to the widow of an Indian commander who “departed to the pyre crowned with fillets by her women and decked out splendidly as for a wedding.” A few polyandrous marriages are alluded to in the epic, but these were not sanctioned by general usage and must have been of very rare occurrence.
The picture of the woman in the Greek accounts, Buddhist discourses or epic tales does not always agree with that portrayed in the formal codes of law. The women of the Dharma-Sutras were helpless beings who were always dependent on their male relations and were classed properties of minors or sealed deposits. The women known to Alexander’s contemporaries took the arms of their fallen relatives and fought side by side with the men against the enemy of their country. The epic matron exhorted her indolent son to “flare up like a torch, though it be but for a moment, but smother not like a fire of chaff just to prolong life”. Education was not denied to women, some of whom are described as being widely known for their knowledge, learning, and dialectic skill. Buddhist texts refer to princesses who composed poems that are preserved in the Theri-gatha or the Psalms of the Sisters. In several epic stories we find references to svayamvara or choice of a husband by the bride herself, and in a famous episode of the Mahabharata a king asked his daughter to choose a husband and said that he would give her the man of her choice. Seclusion of women was practised in certain families, but many of the epic tales bear witness to a freer life where women laid aside their veils and came out of the seclusion of their houses. This was specially the case on the occasion of a great national festival or sorrow. “Women should not be slain,” says one great epic poet. “A wife is half the man,” says another, and adds that “Whene’er we suffer pain and grief
Like mothers kind they bring relief.”
The common people mostly lived in villages in humble dwellings made of thatch which were sometimes mud-plastered for fear of fire. Kings resided in fortified towns (pur) or cities (nagara) provided with lofty walls, strong ramparts, watch-towers and gates. These cities contained pleasure parks, streets lighted with torches and watered, assembly halls, dancing halls, gambling houses, courts of justice, booths for traders and work-places of artisans. The niimbe of big cities was not large. Early Buddhist texts refer to six places-Champa (near Bhagalpur), Rajagriha (in the Patna strict), Sravasti (Saheth-Maheth), Saketa (Oudh), Kausambi (near Allahabad), and Benares (Varanasi or Banaras) as flourishing in the days of the Buddha. Taxila is omitted in this list, either because it had not yet risen to greatness or because it was far away in the northwest. The city of Pataliputra was founded after the death of the sage of the Sakyas. One of the capital cities, that of a kingless State, is expressly mentioned as a “little wattle and daub town”, “a branch township” surrounded by jungles.
The royal residence in the Brahmanical Sutras is a modest structure probably built of wood. Buddhist texts refer to a palace of stone, but it was in fairyland. They also mention buildings of seven storeys in height (sapta bhumaka prasada). It is suggested by a high authority that in early times the superstructure at least of all dwellings was either woodwork or brickwork. But certain texts refer to workers in stone who built houses with material from the ruins of a former village. The imperial palace described in the epic is a noble mansion made of stone and metal and provided with arches and roofs supported by a thousand pillars.
The inner court of the palace contained playgrounds with flowers and fountains where the women amused themselves. Little princesses had their dolls, panchalika. They also played with a ball, kanduka, while the boys sported with a ball or hockey (vita), which they rolled or tossed about. The usual recreations of women were singing, dancing and music. There was a dancing hall attached to almost every palace. Men, too, are represented by Greek authors as being very fond of singing and dancing. But the chief pastimes of knights were gambling, hunting, listening to tales of war, and tournaments in amphitheatres surrounded by platforms for spectators. Buddhist texts refer to acrobatic feats, combats of animals and a kind of primitive chess play.
The dress of the people of the Indus valley consisted of a tunic made of cotton and two other pieces of stuff, one thrown about their shoulders and the other twisted round their heads. Men wore ear-rings and dyed their beards. They used umbrellas and shoes. Women of the aristocratic class were decked with golden stars about their heads and a multitude of necklets and bangles set with precious gems. Girls of the same classes in the Gangetic region also wore necklaces besides waist-bands and anklets adorned with bells. They were gaudily attired in linen or yellow or red silk.
The early epic warrior did not feel much compunction in taking meat, but in the later epic the slaughter of animals in the manner of the Kahatriyas is regarded as cruel and ghoulish. The growing feeling of pity for animate beings is reflected in the exhortation “don’t kill the guiltless cow”,
Puranic writers refer to marriages of Kshatriva kings with Sudra women and the assumption of royal authority by the Sudras. Cases of intermarriage between castes and change of caste and occupation are also found in the epic. An epic king marries a Brahmana girl. A Kshatriya prince is promoted to the rank of a Brahmana. A Brahmana warrior leads the Kuru host against the Pandus and chieftains of the Panchala country. A Kshatriya prince does not hesitate to embrace a Nishada whom he calls his friend, and takes food from a Savara woman who has already served several sages.
Buddhist writers acknowledge the existence of the four varnas and numerous degraded tribes and low trades (hinajati and hinasilpa) besides aboriginal peoples, outcastes and slaves. They refer to pride of birth and taboos on intermarriage and inter dining, especially with slave girls and outcastes. But they give the palm to the Kshatriya and, like some epic poets, usually regard character, and not birth or ceremonial purity, as the true test of caste. Like the epic poets again, they refer to a certain elasticity of caste rules in the matter of connubium, commensality and change of calling. Brahmanas took wives from royal houses. Princes, priests and pedlars ate together and intermarried. Brahmanas and Kshatriyas took to trade and menial work. Weavers became archers. It is clear that social divisions and economic occupations did not exactly coincide, though the texts testify to a natural predilection of artisans and traders for the ancestral calling.
