The unbelievable tales of opulence that occasional travelers brought from India were, in fact, the truth. From the time of the Mauryas, who created India's first great empire, the wealth and power of the country were extravagantly displayed in the splendor of court life. At the height of Mau-ryan glory, in the Third Century B. C., the emperors lived in luxurious palaces decorated with ebony and teak, where they surrounded themselves with hundreds of servants, courtiers and bejeweled dancers, like the girl shown here. Even after the power of the Mauryan potentates declined, the memory of their lavish ways persisted in the imagination of the Indian people. In the centuries that followed, other regimes set up close imitations of Mauryan ceremonies, costumes and architecture. Religion also took on some of this secular magnificence, and gods and holy men were often portrayed as pontifical kings and princes by Indian artists. It is religious pictures—murals adorning a complex of Buddhist shrines in the Ajanta caves near Aurangabad that provide the most colorful record of the people, activities and luxuries of Indian court life. The paintings were intended to illustrate Buddhist legends, but most of them were made during a prosperous era (400-700 A. D.) when Indians consciously emulated Mauryan ways, and they recapture the regal splendor of that early age.
World History
