The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c16.81.1

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.