Story of Nation Buddhist India

SR No.: 035274
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd
Publication Year: 1916
Total Pages: 356
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 88 MB

Page 99

78
BUDDIUIST INDIA
Crowded the city must have been, and noisy. The · oldest records boast of the fact,' and we are not surprised to learn that a corner house, abutting on two streets, was highly prized." But the size of the few large cities is represented as so large, including the suburbs, that the crowding and noise were less prob. ably in those days, at least outside the fortifications, than they are now.
So far as the records at present show there seem to have been few sanitary arrangements. There is constant mention of drains; but they are for water only--either small ones to carry off the water from a bathroom or a chamber,' or large ones to carry off the rain from within the fortifications. It was through these last that dogs' and jackalso got into the citadel; and sometimes even men used them as means of escape, at night, when the gates were closed. It is not likely that they at all corresponded, therefore, to the Roman cloaca. On the other hånd the at present obscure arrangements to obviate the various sanitary difficulties arising from the living together of a number of meinbers of the Order' render it probable that in the palaces and larger mansions, at least similar arrangements may have been in use.
The disposal of the dead was, in some respects, very curious. Deceased persons of distinction, either by birth or wealth or official position, or as
Rh. D. Budithist Suttas, 248, 249. ? Jāt. 5. 350.
5 Jāt, I. 425 ; 3. 415. 3 Vinare Turts, 3. 10S, 110. * Jāt. I. 409, 489. Jāt. 1. 175.
l'iman Tiats, 3. 155, 298.