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122
YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
it." Glass bangles are mentioned in Book IV. Shopfronts of garlandsellers, stalls of dealers in perfumes, and streets full of courtesans and women messengers: form part of the description of evening scenery at the beginning of Book IV. The gorgeous apartments of the queen are located on the top floor of a seven-storied palace, and a Jaina shrine is described as being on the top floor of a seven-storied palace belonging to a wealthy merchant in & story in Book VI, section 12. Palaces whence elephant-races were witnessed are mentioned in Books III and VII, section 32.7
The prevalence of early marriage is attested both in Yasastilaka and Nitiväkyāmsta. A speaker in a story in the former work (Book VI, section 19 ) identifies heaven with the mutual love of a maiden, twelve years of age, and a youth of sixteen ; while in Nītivākyāmrta 31, 1 it is clearly said that a maiden and a youth of the age specified above are fit for marital relations.
Certain details concerning crime and punishment are preserved in Yasastilaka. In a story in Book VII, section 27, the pr
Sribhūti who is found guilty of breach of trust is given three choices by the king: he must either swallow three bowls of cow-dung or receive thirty-three blows to be given by powerful wrestlers, or forfeit his entire property. When he chooses the latter alternative, all his wealth is confiscated; and he is smeared with clay teeming with worms, and made to wear garlands of potsherds and abandoned platters, and expelled from the city seated on the back of a donkey. Similar treatment is meted out to Parvata by the enraged citizens in a story in Book VII, section 30. He is pelted with clods of earth and severely whipped and turned out of the city on the back of a donkey, clothed in rags from the cremation ground, and wearing a garland
1 gigi ata' p. 394. 2 as faqtă #a:
n a vila HEA p. 77. 3 ota FTTHIURETTE' p. 18. 4 Amalari farofanty'p. 18. 5 quaffarnafafa***
7 hledyrsrettedy' p. 19. 6 CATERTETAP*** **a ta' Book IV, p. 29. A partially ruined palace,
known as the Kushk Mahal, at Chanderi, now in Gwalior state, has been identified as a seven-storied palace ordered to be built by Mahmud Shah of Malwa in 1445. Only the remains of four stories now exist, Percy Brown: Indian Architeature, Vol.
II, p. 65. 7 'TERYTYTTANTEITHNITH'; sutay forg sifaaitafT STIITTAR '. Vol. I,
p. 495; Vol. II, 369. 8 aui atata : : 1 aura HFT #ETETTHETAT : fift:""" : 1'p. 317.
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