Yasastilaka and Indian Culture

SR No.: 001609
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Krishnakant Handiqui
Publisher: Jain Sanskruti Samrakshak Sangh Solapur
Publication Year: 1968
Total Pages: 566
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Story, Literature, & Culture
File Size: 16 MB

Page 110

5. YASASTILAKA AS A SOCIO-POLITICAL RECORD
discourse on matters connected with physical exercise, food and drink.1 Astrologers are mentioned in Book II, and they are consulted on the eve of the coronation, and doubtless on many other occasions. The Sthapati or the architect appears in connection with the arrangements for the coronation and the construction of the magnificent pavilion on the bank of the Sipra."
The composition of the personnel of medieval courts seems to have been more or less similar in India and elsewhere. Nizami of Samarcand declared about 1155 that a properly constituted court should have four classes of educated men: secretaries of state, poets, astrologers and physicians, for "the business of kings cannot be conducted without competent secretaries; their triumphs and victories will not be immortalized without eloquent poets; their enterprises will not succeed unless undertaken at seasons adjudged propitious by sagacious astrologers; while health, the basis of all happiness and activity, can only be secured by the services of able and trustworthy physicians ".3 This is a fairly accurate description of the composition of medieval courts, whether oriental or occidental. We are told that "even in the West most courts had their astrologers by the thirteenth century-the earl of Chester even in the twelfth-and the other three might well be found still earlier, but in a less bureaucratic form. The description is particularly true of the Sicilian court of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with "its astrologers and poets, its Arab physicians and many-tongued secretaries"; and the entourage of the Indian court was not, we presume, materially different, to judge from Somadeva's circumstantial account. As regards secretaries and state officials, we may here refer to the Sandhivigrahins, who appear in our work in the role of secretaries of state, and can be accurately described as 'many-tongued', as will be seen later.
utterances of the Sandhivigrahins are reproduced below (3. 247-46):
दूताः केरलचोलसिंहलशक श्रीमालपञ्चाल कैरन्यैश्चाङ्गकलिङ्गषङ्गपतिभिः प्रस्थापिताः प्राङ्गणे । तिष्ठन्त्यात्मकुलागताखिलमहीसारं गृहीत्वा करे देवस्यापि जगत्पतेरवसरः किं विद्यते वा न वा ॥
One of the functions of the Sandhivigrahins in our work is to announce the arrival at the imperial court of envoys from foreign courts with presents characteristic of their respective countries.5 The poetical
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See below.
See Chap. II.
Haskins: The Renaissance of the twelfth century, p. 54.
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'The court astrologer...became an indispensable adjunct of the Abbasid throne. Hitti: History of the Arabs, p. 318.
5 The hajib or chamberlain of the Baghdad court was attached to the person of the caliph, and his duty consisted in introducing accredited envoys and dignitaries into the caliphal presence. Hitti (op. cit.).