28 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
a receptacle (glaha) and presenting it to the assembled gamblers for
drawing, all the while dancing. The game of dice looks like a modern
cabaret and a gangsters5 den combined !
Atharva-vedic hymn VII. 109 throws more light on the real
character of the gamblers and the dice :
2 Do thou, 0 Agni, carry ghee for the Apsarases, dust for the dice, gravel and waters; enjoying in their respective shares the oblation-giving, the gods revel in both kinds of oblations.
5 He who made these riches for our playing, who (does) the taking (?) and leaving of the dice—that god, enjoying this libation of ours— may we revel ^ joint revelling with the Gandharvas.
6 Having good things in common (? sam-vasu)—that is your appellation; for stern-looking, realm-bearing (ra§trabhrto) (are) the dice;
you as such, 0 drops (Indavo), would we worship with oblation; may we be lords of wealth.
7 If (yat) a supplicant I call on the gods, if we have dwelt in Vedic studentship (brahma-carya), if I take up the brown dice (babhrun)— let them be gracious to us in such plight.2
Tribal Assembly
The place of joint revelling in ancient society was the tribal assembly (sabha). Atharva-vedic hymn VII. 12.2 invokes the assembly thus:
'•We know thy name, 0 assembly (sabhe); verily sport (narista) by name art those; whoever are thine assembly-sitters (sabha-sadas), let them be of like speech with me."8
Hence, the gamblers were sabha-sadas, members of the tribal assembly. The dice were invoked as sam-vasu, 'having good things in common' or communal property. The seer of the latterly-quoted hymn (VII. 12) chants:
E§am aham samasinanam varco vijnanam a dade Asyah sarvasyah sarilsado mam Indra bhaginam krnu. [Endow me with the same splendour and discernment as these who have assembled together. Make me, 0 Indra, a possessor of a share of this whole (tribal assembly.)]
What does this share consist of? The Atharva-vedic hymn IV. 33 provides the answer:
2 With desire of pleasant fields (su-k§etriya), of welfare, of good things (vasuya), we sacrifice—gleaming away our evil.
That is why the dice are equated with dust, gravel and water (pamsun, sikata, apah). The dice represented su-k§etras, fertile fields. But, these fields were common property (sam-vasu). Hence, the bhaga or share could be nothing other than the kula share of the communal land.
The dice are called also as rostra-bearing. Ra§tra in Kautalya's Artha-sastra meant land of the people, while Sita meant royal land. Kosambi correctly interprets ra§tra as tribal land.0 In other words, it