78. Two heralds.
These heralds were introduced into Hindú plays something in the same manner as a Chorus; and, although their especial duty was to announce, in measured verse, the periods of the day, and particularly the fixed divisions into which the king's day was divided, yet the strain which they poured forth frequently contained allusions to incidental circumstances. The royal office was no sinecure. From the Da[s']a-kumára, it appears that the day and night were each divided into eight portions of one hour and a half, reckoned from sunrise; and were thus distributed: Day—l. The king, being dressed, is to audit accounts; 2. He is to pronounce judgment in appeals; 3. He is to breakfast; 4. He is to receive and make presents; 5. He is to discuss political questions with his ministers; 6. He is to amuse himself; 7. He is to review his troops; 8. He is to hold a military council. Night—l. He is to receive the reports of his spies and envoys; 2. He is to sup or dine; 3. He is to retire to rest after the perusal of some sacred work; 4 and 5. He is to sleep; 6. He is to rise and purify himself; 7. He is to hold a private consultation with his ministers, and instruct his officers; 8. He is to attend upon the Purohita or family priest, for the performance of religious ceremonies. See Wilson's Hindú Theatre, vol. i. p. 209.
79. Feeling a quivering sensation in her right eyelid.
Compare note 18.
80. The protector of the four classes of the people, the guardian of the four conditions of the priesthood.
A remarkable feature in the ancient Hindú social system, as depicted in the plays, was the division of the people into four classes or castes:—1st. The sacerdotal, consisting of the Bráhmans.—2nd. The military, consisting of fighting men, and including the king himself and the royal family. This class enjoyed great privileges, and must have been practically the most powerful.—3rd. The commercial, including merchants and husbandmen.—4th. The servile, consisting of servants and slaves. Of these four divisions the first alone has been preserved in its purity to the present day, although the Rájputs claim to be the representatives of the second class. The others have been lost in a multitude of mixed castes formed by intermarriage, and bound together by similarity of trade or occupation. With regard to the sacerdotal class, the Bráhmans, who formed it, were held to be the chief of all human beings; they were superior to the king, and their lives and property were protected by the most stringent laws. They were to divide their lives into four quarters, during which they passed through four states or conditions, viz. as religious students, as householders, as anchorites, and as religious mendicants.
81. That he is pleased with ill-assorted unions.
The god Brahmá seems to have enjoyed a very unenviable notoriety as taking pleasure in ill-assorted marriages, and encouraging them by his own example in the case of his own daughter.
82. [S']achí's sacred pool near Sakrávatára.
[S']akra is a name of the god Indra, and Sakrávatára is a sacred place of pilgrimage where he descended upon earth. [S']achí is his wife, to whom a Urtha, or holy bathing-place, was probably consecrated at the place where [S']akoontalá had performed her ablutions. Compare note 14.