The Social Structure and Other Features of the Mahábhárata period

DRESS

Dhuti and cádar are India’s own dress.

To stitch a shirt and the like was not done in ancient India. But sometimes there was inconvenience with the cádar, so people began getting it stitched.

When the Aryans came to India, the dhuti was being used. But with it people were wearing a stitched garment, a sort of T-shirt.

Everyone used it except the purohits who used cádars.

Páyjámá, kámij, etc., came from Persia a long time later.

• “Kámij” and “jama” are Persian words.
• Jámá is known as “kurtá” in Bengali.

During the Mahábhárata period, vipras and vaeshyas would use dhuti and cádar.

Shúdras would use only dhuti. Kśatriyas would wear a dhuti and a tight kurtá like a T-shirt.

The Kaoravas and Pandavas used this very dress.

Long after the Mahábhárata, Kaniska, the Hiinayanii Buddhist king from Central Asia, invaded India through Kujela Kadphisus and expanded his kingdom.

Then Bhima Kadphisus made his entry, and then came Kaniska.

The names Kujela Kadphisus and Bhima Kadphisus alone show that they were not Indians.

When Kaniska was enthroned his name was Kaniska – an Indian name.

At the time of Kaniska, Indians began to use páyjámá.

Before him there was no usage of páyjámá in India.

Even a short time before the present, people with old ideas would regard a man in páyjámá as a Muslim.

So this was the dress during the Mahábhárata period.

Those persons – vipra, kśatriya and vaeshya – who came from Aryan families generally used turbans.

The respect to be paid was judged from the turban – the costlier the turban, the greater the man.

That Mahábhárata system as regards the turban is still there in the Punjab in one way or other.

When juniors were greeting seniors, they had to take off their turbans.

FOOD

The staple food of ancient India was very simple. The ancient people used rice and not rut́i.

There was no use at all of garam masalá and the like.

People were taking boiled food which nowadays we call haviśánna. This is the food taken in India for a number of days of the mourning period after death.

The Aryans introduced the use of meat, especially among the kśatriyas in the Mahábhárata period.

There were a number of jungles then. Hence, people mostly liked to eat deer meat.

According to Vaedika views, deer meat, being sentient, could be taken by Vipras also.

There is no proof of fish-eating in that period. Probably people did not eat fish.

Food made with spices – polao and the like – was not known to Indians.

The use of polao we have learned from Persia.

As far as vegetables, [[radish]], eggplant, beans, okra and potato were not used in India, because all these were brought to India afterwards.

• Eggplant came from China
• The radish came from Japan
• Okra came from Africa
• Pumpkin and squash came from Europe
• Potato came from America.

In the India of that time, there were none of these things.

We have learned about spices mostly from South Russia and old Iran.

Rice was heavily used, as wheat came from outside India.

In the old Vaedika language, rice and wheat have no name.

The Aryans had first contact with wheat in Persia.

The Aryans moved from Persia to India in the period of the Atharva Veda.

They then first came in contact with rice.

Iran was known as Áryańyavraja in the Vaedika language. It got changed into Iráńvej. At present, the official name of Persia is Iráńbej.

Before the Aryans came to Persia, they knew only the use of barley.

Coming to Persia, they learned the use of wheat.

It was tasty. When some function is held that we enjoy, we say the function was held with “dhum-dhám” (pomp and show).

“Go” in Saḿskrta means “tongue”.

Since there was great pleasure in the tongue on eating wheat, it was known as “godhum”.

This “godhum” got changed in the Prákrta language to “gohuma” which in Bihar became “gahum” or “gehuṋ.”

When the Aryans came in contact with rice, they named it “briihi” which means “food.”

India was a rice-eating country.

Later on, wheat from outside India was brought and used. The first use of wheat was in Saptanada Desha, the Punjab.

Wheat did not have any local name. When it ripens it becomes like gold. So in the Punjab it is known as “kanaka,” meaning “gold.”

So in the Mahábhárata age, people were rice-eaters. This was the food, the most simple food.

LANGUAGE

After the death of the Vaedika language, the 7 Prákrta languages were used in India.

Paeshácii and Shaorasenii Prákrta were spoken by the people around Delhi.

The mother tongue of Krśńa was Shaorasenii Prákrta.

SCRIPT

In India at that time, the old Bráhmii and Kharośt́hii script were in use.

People who wanted to write the Vaedika language had to write in the Bráhmii and Kharośt́hii scripts, as neither the Vaedika nor the Saḿskrta language had its own script.

The same Bráhmii and Kharosthii scripts got transformed and became the present Sarada script of Kashmir.

Then the Gurumukhii, Nagrii, and Nauṋgala scripts came into, being.

The present-day scripts came into being within the last 1,000 or 1,200 years.