341 
1872.] Bdbu Bajendralala Mitra — A Picnic in Ancient India. 
nights to many years. But as they formed but a small section of the 
general community, their examples, however well calculated to restrain 
immorality and induce a religious spirit, did not keep the people engaged in 
actual religious ceremonies for any protracted period, or too frequently. At 
any rate, the claims of religion on their time and attention were not greater 
than what they were on those of other nations of antiquity ; aud the people 
at large ate and drank and enjoyed life without any serious let or hindrance. 
Even Brahmans, when not actually engaged hi the performance of sacrifices, 
were not debarred from the sweets and pleasures of the world, and the most 
ancient treatise* on the various ways of enjoying the society of women, i. e. 
on the ars erotica, is due to a hoary sage named S'ankhayana, whose ordin- 
ances arc held to be quite as sacred as the Vedas themselves. 
Little is, however, known as to how the people enjoyed themselves in 
their light moments, and of the games, pastimes, recreations and entertain- 
ments which pleased them the most. I think, therefore, that the following 
extract from the Harivaiis'a Parva of the Mahabharata, (chapters 146-47 )t 
affording a most graphic picture of an ancient Indian Picnic, will not be unin- 
teresting to the readers of the Journal. It depicts a state of society so entirely 
different from what we are familiar with in the present day, or in the later 
Sanskrit literature, that one is almost tempted to imagine that the people who 
took parts in it were some sea-kings of Norway, or Teuton knights carousing 
after a fight, and not Hindus ; and yet if the S'sistras are to bo believed, 
they were the Hindus of Hindus, the two most prominent characters among 
them being no less than incarnations of the Divinity, aud another a holy 
sage, who had abjured the world for constant communion with his Maker, 
and whose law treatise ( Narada Sanhita) still governs the conscience of the 
people. 
The scene of the Picnic was a watering-place on the west coast of 
Guzerat near Dvarka, named Pindaraka. It is described as a tiriha or 
sacred pool, and the trip to it is called tiriha ydtrd, or a pilgrimage to a holy 
place ; but the sequel shows that the trip was one of pleasure aud had no- 
thing religious about it. The party, headed by Baladeva, Krishna, and Ar- 
juna, issued forth with their families and thousands of courtezans, spent the 
day in bathing, feasting, drinking, singing and dancing, and returned home 
without performing any of the numerous rites and ceremonies, which pil- 
grims are bound by the S'astras to attend to. 
The presence of the courtezans in the company is a fact worthy of spe- 
cial note, for although Hindu society has always looked upon fallen women 
with kind, indulgent eyes, and instances are on record of such persons having 
* S'ankhayana Kama Sutra. 
f Owing to an error in numbering in the Asiatic Society’s edition of the 
Harivaiis'a, the chapters there appear as 147 and 148. 
