In the Ayodhya Kanda of the Valmiki Ramayana, King Dasharatha prepares to crown his eldest son, Rama. Manthara, a hunchbacked servant of Queen Kaikeyi, hears the news. Valmiki calls her jnatidasi, a servant of Kaikeyi’s family who had lived with her since her birth.
Manthara tells the queen: “think of a solution to get your son Bharata the kingdom and to send Rama, your enemy, to exile.” Kaikeyi acts on her advice, and Rama is sent into exile.
In the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata, Duryodhana envies the wealth of his cousin Yudhishthira. His maternal uncle Shakuni offers him a plan: “I promise to win all that wealth of his, and thou, O Duryodhana, shalt then enjoy the same.” He adds: “I will defeat him repeatedly at every throw by practising deception.”
Duryodhana takes the plan to his father, King Dhritarashtra, and presses him: “It behoveth thee to grant him permission to do so.” The game of dice follows.
Tradition holds that the Mughal emperor Akbar kept nine jewels at his court, the navaratna. The usual list names Birbal, Abul Fazl, Faizi, Tansen, Raja Todar Mal, Raja Man Singh, Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, Fakir Aziao-Din and Mulla Do-Piyaza.
The list is uncertain. Sources do not agree on the names, and the term is said to be absent from the Persian chronicles of Akbar’s time.
Agalaadhu anugaadhu theekkaaivaar polga igalvendharch chernthozhugu vaar. Those who live close to kings should be like people warming themselves at a fire, neither too far nor too near. This is couplet 691 of the Thirukkural, the first in its chapter on conduct in the presence of kings.
Chamcha. A spoon, and also, in the Rekhta dictionary’s words, a “yes-man, sycophant.”
Darbari. A courtier, “one entitled to a seat in the royal court, one who attends royal court.”
In 2019 the news agency IANS wrote that a durbari culture had no place in the Congress party until Indira Gandhi took charge. “And thereafter started the coterie culture.”
Former students of the Doon School are known as Doscos. Rajiv Gandhi and his brother Sanjay, ThePrint writes, “brought this elite network of ‘Doscos’ into vogue in politics.” Arun Singh, from the school’s 1959 batch, served in Rajiv Gandhi’s cabinet.
In January 1985 the Christian Science Monitor described two men around the new prime minister: “One is a trusted cousin. The other, a former schoolmate.” The cousin was Arun Nehru. The schoolmate was Arun Singh.
P.N. Dhar served as an adviser to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. According to Wikipedia, he “was one of her close advisors, who were collectively known as the ‘Kashmiri Mafia’.”
During the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, held no constitutional office. The Shah Commission later investigated the Emergency. Its reports, in the words of an editorial in The Sentinel, documented “the rise of extra-constitutional authority, particularly the influence exercised by Sanjay Gandhi.”
R.K. Dhawan was the private secretary of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. When he died on August 6, 2018, at 81, obituaries recalled his power. IANS wrote that he “wielded enormous clout with his presence in the PMO and the household,” by “keeping a hold on who got access to the Prime Minister.” The Tribune noted “some claiming that he controlled information and access to the then prime minister.”
In Shiva temples, devotees whisper their wishes into the ear of Nandi, the bull who sits facing Shiva. “This act is based on the belief that Nandi, being Shiva’s primary guard, carries the message directly to Shiva,” according to Wikipedia. Nandi is also “the guardian deity of Kailash, the abode of Shiva.”