ANCIENT INDIA. 



19 



boiled ; spirituous liquors to be mixed with it ; the warm 

 bath to be used, and exercise taken. In the hot season light 

 food and curries to be used ; the cold bath and light dresses ; 

 the body smeared with cooling aromatic applications ; cool 

 water to be used as drink, and sleep allowed during the day. 

 Lastly, Charaka states that there are three means of preserv- 

 ing life — proper food, sleep, and proper government of the 

 senses and passions. 



13. Food. — As already observed, the inhabitants of ancient 

 India were well-supplied with food as with other requirements. 

 It is recorded of them in the sixth century before our era that 

 they had abundant means of subsistence; that they inhaled pure 

 air and drank the very finest water. All kinds of fruit appear to 

 have been cultivated ; in addition to cereals there were grown 

 throughout the country much millet, pulse, rice and many 

 other plants useful for food, all these being well- watered by 

 the profusion of river streams — a remark which, applied as it 

 was to the Punjab and adjoining districts, shows how different 

 was then the conditions in this respect from what they now are. 

 Famines were scarcely known ; and as two rainfalls occurred 

 each year, so were two crops of cereals obtained. In the third 

 century before our era guests of Sandracottus at Patna were 

 treated to rice and different kinds of meat " dressed in the 

 Indian style," that is, doubtless as curries much the same as 

 at the present time. At that time a large portion of the 

 agricultural produce of the empire was stored up in the 

 royal granaries and disposed of partly in the maintenance 

 of the army and civil administration, partly sold to the trading 

 and manufacturing classes. About this time the sacrifice 

 of animals in Buddhist India was prohibited, involving as 

 it did the use of their flesh as food. It is however specially 

 stated that the prohibition in question little affected the 

 population of the Gangetic valley who had subsisted on 

 grain and vegetables for unrecorded ages, although they had 



