The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.81

Language: English

v2.c16.81.1

The second question is, as to whether the abducted person is intended to be a married woman or a maiden. It may be said that the lady is a married woman, and not a maiden, for the manner in which she sits in the company of a man at the opening scene in the Queen's Palace would be inconsistent in a maiden. The shampooing in the Gaṇeśa Cave, may be for a parent, but the close seat with the right hand round the neck of the male personage in the other would be highly unbecoming in an unmarried female. But if the stooping figure be taken to be that of a wounded man, a wounded priest for instance, the lady may be a maiden nursing him without any offence to propriety. It is true that the appearance of the figure lying on the mattress does not indicate suffering from a wound, but in the Rāṇī Naur frieze, the stooping head affords some indication of it. There is nothing, however, to necessitate the identification of the first lady with the abducted fair one. The first may be the wife of the man beside whom she sits, and the second a maiden distinct from her. The theory which would cannect the first with the second would take the person who brings the visitor to be a go-between, probably a maid-servant, or a village crony, and the person brought, a lover, who, failing in his suit, attempts force; but his halting, painful gait, to indicate which the rude but really talented artist has taken great pains, belies this supposition.

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Besides, it is not at all necessary to identify the visitor, the combatant, and the ravisher, to be the same person represented in different stages of the story. In archaic sculpture, whether Egyptian, Greek or Assyrian, nothing is more common, in representing contests between two different classes of opponents, than the endeavour to show the unequal, and yet equally balanced, "fortune of war" by giving *here* an instance of one side vanquished, *there* of another, Taking the two favourite subjects with the Greeks, the contest between the Lapithae and the Centaurs (Phigaleian, Parthenon and Theseum sculptures in the British Museum), and those between the Greeks and the Amazons, we find in one slab a Lapith or an Amazon worsted, and in the next he or she victorious over a Centaur or an Athenian ; and this is exactly what occurs in the frieze under notice,—in the middle a battle, with a man vanquished and led in as a prisoner by a woman on the one side, and a woman overcome on the opposite side, and, instead of being dragged or led along, is, as may be expected, carried away in his arms by the man, who is in this case the victor. The first couple may be husband and wife [12] friendly to the cause of the Amazonian ladies. There is nothing inconsistent in this, and a fight between men and women cannot be improbable, where women go about armed with swords and shields.

v2.c16.81.3

Even if it be supposed that the attack is on a single woman, still it is evident that the attempt is not upon a helpless person utterly unable to defend herself. She is evidently of a martial character, and does not yield herself up until after a good fight and with a sword and a shield, in course of which she is worsted and disarmed. This would imply a Kṣatrīya woman, a princess, who ordinarily went forth armed, much in the same way as Marhatta and Rajput women of quality generally did till the beginning of this century, and still occasionally do in some places. If the lady be the same who first appears with her husband, the question may be asked what became of the husband immediately after the abduction? But his wounded appearance in the opening scene does not warrant any expectation of his taking an active part in the rescue. If he did attempt anything, he must have been so wounded in the first onslaught as to be placed *hors de combat*. The theory that the fight is between some men and women, would raise no such question. The day of the abduction was probably that of the encounter with the elephants in the cave, at which, according to the first theory, the husband was wounded, and after which the husband and wife had retired to an adjoining cave to take rest, away from their followers.

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The Gaṇeśa frieze introduces a tree at the resting-place, but the cave-door is not omitted, an arched prominence behind the tree clearly indicates its existence.¹³ The second theory would assume certain ladies going to the cave, a sacred place, where they were over taken by the men. Under either supposition, a lady, maiden or married, was abducted. The deer hunt in the Queen’s Palace appears to be intended to serve as a diversion to win the affection of the captive fair one. The second compartment of the Gaṇeśa frieze, would have given some detail of the occurrences, which intervened between the abduction, and the attempt at rescue, but unfortunately it is a blank.