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Lord Mahavira and His Times
carpets with designs such as a nautch girl's dance, couches covered with canopies or with crimson cushions at both ends. There were also rich elephant housings and horse-rugs or carriage-rugs. Sheep-skins, goat-skins, and deer-skins were used as coverlets, and fine skins, such as those of lions, tigers, panthers or antelopes, were either used for reclining upon or cut into pieces and spread inside or outside the couches and chairs. We also hear of sun-shades, mosquito-curtains, filters for straining water, mosquito-fans, flower-stands, and fly-whisks (chamara) made of tails of oxen and peacocks or of bark and grass.
Costly utensils were used such as bowls of various kinds made of beryl, crystal, gold, silver, copper, glass, tin, lead or bronze, and some of them were painted or set with jewels. Even circular supports of bowls were made of gold or silver, The increasingly large use of pottery vessels during this period is proved by archaeological excavations. The most remarkable is North Black Polished Ware which enjoyed the status of a de luxe ware of the period on account of its beauty and durability. Bowls and dishes of this ware have been found in a large number.
FESTIVALS AND GAMES
People amused themselves by participating in Samajjas (festival gatherings) which formed a regular feature of social life during this period. The Jātakas inform us that the Samajjās were special gatherings where crowds of men, women and children gathered together and witnessed various kinds of shows and performances, such as dancing and music, combats of elephants, horses and rams, bouts with quarter-staff and wrestling. The Jaina sutras inform us that festive entertainments were characterised by feasting, drinking and amorous acts.2
Though the festive assemblies at this time were mostly secular, some of them were no doubt religious in nature. The centres of these festivals were the cities and towns where people gathered from the neighbouring villages to enjoy them
1. Pre-Buddhist India, p. 355.
2. SBE, XXII, pp. 94-95.
