Ancient Indian Colonization in South-East Asia c10.87

c10.87

Reference may be made in this connection to the two inscriptions mentioned on p. 71 recording endowments to temples. These include, in the first case, ‘women who take to religious life.’ The expression in Khmer literally means “females who enter into religion for the sacrificer (*yajamāna*) of the god.” Although the exact meaning is not quite clear, it is not difficult to recognise in them the “devadāsīs” of Indian temples. I do not think there is any reference to this class in Indian inscriptions of such early period. This raises the question whether such pernicious custom originated in India or was derived from contact with countries where moral laxity of this type among females is known to have prevailed in more obnoxious form even in later times.