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SOOTAL LIFE AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 167
new appointment. The royal harem was filled with molens and women from all social grades. The high-class courtezans who were not allowed to live within the palace compound, came also into close personal contact with the king. The books contain instances where, even in historical times, princes were begotten on them, e.g., Prince Abhaya, son of Bimbisāra, was born of Ambapālī. The Jätakas mention an instance in which Vasudeva saw a Candāli on his way to the park, and in spite of her low birth, married her, making her his chief queen. Her son, Sivi, succeeded to the throne of Dväravati. Some of the kings were so profligate in their ways that no handsome women could escape them. The fate of the captured queens depended on the victor's whims and caprices. In the new household, they sometimes had to exchange places with their maids. Even the father employed the dancing girls to persuade his sons to indulge in worldly pleasures. The want of a male issue to succeed to the throne was keenly felt in the royal family as well as by the subjects. In an extraordinary case, the king having no son by any of the women in his harem, let out in the streets the queens and all, for a week from time to time under a religious sanction (dhammanātaka). In Pali literature,
1 Jätaka, v, p. 279.
