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Mapping Leisure and Life Through the Ages in India

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Mapping Leisure

Abstract

Leisure in India changed with the social structure of Indian society during different historical periods. Yet its uniqueness has been maintained by tradition, particularly before the beginning of modernization.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    However, information regarding the division of the Indus valley cities into the citadel area (where the essential instructions of religious and civic life, including the Great Bath, were located) and the residential area (where the urban population lived) support conjectures that while the ruling warrior and priestly classes lived in the citadel area, the masses of artisans and other classes lived elsewhere. The Great Bath must essentially have been a centre for the leisure and pleasure of the elites living in the citadel area, though, of course, on occasions of festival and ritual ceremonies it would have served the masses as well. For details and discussion on this topic, see D.D. Kosambi, The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline, Vikas Publishing House, 1970, pp. 66–68.

  2. 2.

    The use of dynastic chronologies in our discussion is only to help provide a framework in time, otherwise the emphasis in making periodization is on such factors which account for changes in the socio-economic structure of society. For further discussion on the problem of periodization in history see Romila Thapar, A History of India Volume One, Penguin Books, 1966, pp. 20–23. See also K.C. Panchanadikar and J. Panchanadikar, Determinants of Social Structure and Social Changes in India, Popular Prakashan, 1970, pp. 71–97.

  3. 3.

    Thapar, Romila, op. cit., p. 37.

  4. 4.

    Thapar, Romila, op. cit., p. 42.

  5. 5.

    Thapar, Romila, op. cit., p. 44. Also according to her, ‘The sacrifice was certainly a solemn institution, but it also served the purpose of releasing energies and inhibitions through the general conviviality which followed at the end of the sacrifice and particularly after the liberal drinking of Soma’.

  6. 6.

    R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Raychaudhuri and Kalikinkar Dutta, An Advanced History of India, Macmillian, London, 1967, p. 31. However, according to Thapar, ‘Chariot-racing was a prestige sport and was included as part of the ritual at certain royal ceremonies’.

  7. 7.

    See Thapar, op. cit., p. 42, Yajurvedic Sogdhi and Spiti, i.e. eating and drinking in common for which the eighth-century Aryans prayed are also a pointer in this direction. See also Kosambi, op. cit., p. 174.

  8. 8.

    Majumdar, et al., op. cit., p. 31.

  9. 9.

    Michael Edwardes, Everyday Life in Early India, 1969, pp. 5, 24. Divinely fixed division of society is traced to a late Hymn of the rig-Veda according to which ‘when they divided the primeval being (Purusa) the Brahamana was his mouth, the Rajanya became his arms, the Vaishya was his thighs, and from his feet sprang the Sudras’.

  10. 10.

    Jeannie Auboyer, Daily Life in Ancient India, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1965, pp. 30–31.

  11. 11.

    Thapar, op. cit., pp. 38–39.

  12. 12.

    Thapar, op. cit., pp. 50–51.

  13. 13.

    A.L. Basham, The Wonder that was India, Grove Press, New York, 1954, p. 91.

  14. 14.

    Majumdar, et al., op. cit., p. 44.

  15. 15.

    Yogendra Singh, Modernization of Indian Tradition, Thomson Press, Delhi, 1973, p. 132. In his opinion, ‘The office of the king and the priest were complementary; the priest was the source of moral norms (dharma) which the king was obliged to enforce. Theoretically, therefore, the office of the priest was superior to that of the king. In practice, however, conformity to this ideal was never fully achieved but its ruthless violation was also rare. King always respected the moral and religious prerogatives of the priests’.

  16. 16.

    While the prime minister, the royal chaplain (purohit), the king’s spiritual master (acharya) and the army commander received 48,000 panas, the treasurer and the chief collector 24,000 panas, the accountants and clerks received 500 panas, whereas the counsellors and the ministers were paid 12,000 panas; and artisans received 120 panas. Though the value of the pana is not indicated nor the interval (perhaps monthly?) at which salaries were paid, the ratio of the clerk’s salary to that of the most senior official works out at 1:96, and the ratio of the artisans to that of the minister at 1:100. See Thapar, op. cit., pp. 82–83; also Auboyer, op. cit., pp. 111–113.

  17. 17.

    Edwardes, op. cit., p. 26. As to the importance of the guilds, the author writes that ‘There are references to guilds processing their own force of armed mercenaries, private armies probably used to guard caravans and trading posts but which were sometimes loaned to the king in times of war. Guilds were often extremely wealthy and their chiefs occasionally became the counsellors of kings.’ (pp. 89–90). See also Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, Asia Publishing House, 1973, p. 113, where he quotes from Professor E. Washburn Hopkins, Cambridge History of India, Vol, I., p. 269 that it is said, that, ‘the merchants guilds were of such authority that the king was not allowed to establish any laws repugnant to these trade unions. The heads of guilds are mentioned next after priests as objects of a king’s anxious concern’.

  18. 18.

    Edwards, op. cit., p. 95; See also Auboyer, op. cit., p. 233.

  19. 19.

    Auboyer, op. cit., p. 251.

  20. 20.

    Thapar, op. cit., p. 152.

  21. 21.

    Majumdar, et al., op. cit., p. 73; See also Edwardes, op. cit., p. 108.

  22. 22.

    Greek ambassador of Seleucus Nikator who came to reside at the court of Candragupta Maurya in 303 BC. Megasthenes composed a detailed account of contemporary life in India which has not survived, although fragments are quoted in classical Western sources.

  23. 23.

    Quoted from Thapar, op. cit., p. 79.

  24. 24.

    Auboyer, op. cit., pp. 251–253; Also Edwards, op. cit., pp. 106–108.

  25. 25.

    Auboyer, op. cit., p. 143.

  26. 26.

    For detailed discussion on the annual cycle of various kinds of rites and festivals and the nature of celebrations and activities attached to them, see Auboyer, op. cit., pp. 144–148; and Edwardes, op. cit., pp. 65–69.

  27. 27.

    Thapar, op. cit., p. 153.

  28. 28.

    Ibid., p. 233.

  29. 29.

    Edwardes, op. cit., p. 102.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., p. 241.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., p. 224.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    Yogendra Singh, op. cit., p. 181.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 320.

  35. 35.

    Nehru, Jawaharlal, op. cit., p. 264.

  36. 36.

    Quoted by Majumdar, et al., op. cit., p. 287 from Cambridge History, Vol. III, p. 87.

  37. 37.

    Thapar, op. cit., p. 267; see also Ashraf, op. cit., p. 3.

  38. 38.

    Thapar, op. cit., p. 291.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 150.

  40. 40.

    Ashraf, op. cit., pp. 154–157, 194–195. See also Majumdar, et al., op. cit., p. 392.

  41. 41.

    Ashraf, op. cit., pp. 103, 222.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., p. 222.

  43. 43.

    For detailed discussion and examples, see Ashraf, op. cit., pp. 222–229; See also G.N. Sharma, Social Life in Mediaeval Rajasthan, Lakshmi Narayan Agarwal Educational Publishers, 1968, pp. 135–137.

  44. 44.

    Thapar, op. cit., p. 301.

  45. 45.

    Ashraf, op. cit., pp. 60–61.

  46. 46.

    Ashraf, op. cit., p. 237.

  47. 47.

    Thapar, Romila, op. cit., p. 279.

  48. 48.

    Ashraf, K.M., op. cit., pp. 114–115.

  49. 49.

    Thapar, Romila op. cit., pp. 256–262.

  50. 50.

    Sharma, G.N., op. cit., p. 139; and Ashraf, K.M., op. cit., pp. 246–247.

  51. 51.

    See Yogendra Singh, op. cit., p. 85.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., p. 86.

  53. 53.

    Ibid.

  54. 54.

    Richard D. Lambert, Workers, Factories and Social Change in India, Princeton University Press, 1953, p. 17.

  55. 55.

    Srinivas as quoted by Yogendra Singh, op. cit., p. 119.

  56. 56.

    Yogendra Singh, op. cit., p. 110.

  57. 57.

    Y.B. Damle, Communication of Modern Ideas and Knowledge of Indian Villages, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge Mass. 1955.

  58. 58.

    Lambert, op. cit., p. 137.

  59. 59.

    Yogendra Singh, op. cit., p. 120. He observes that ‘Folk songs now often use metaphors, idioms and tunes of popular cinema songs; many of them refer caustically to contemporary feuds and tensions among various castes and groups; election propaganda is often made through the media of folk dramas, songs and devotional meetings’.

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  1. India International Institute of Social Sciences, Jaipur, India

    Ishwar Modi

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  1. India International Institute of Social Sciences, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

    Ishwar Modi

  2. WLRA International Centre of Excellence, Breda, The Netherlands

    Teus J. Kamphorst

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Modi, I. (2018). Mapping Leisure and Life Through the Ages in India. In: Modi, I., Kamphorst, T. (eds) Mapping Leisure. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-3632-3_5

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