The World of Courtesans c4.10

c4.10

Sarkar understands by the term *Gandharvagrihita* (i.e., possessed by a Gandharva) the beginning of the later practice of a formal or nominal marriage of a courtesan to some deity or woodland spirit. As a matter of fact, in the *Atharva Veda* women are believed to have been possessed or enjoyed by the Gandharvas apparently in the course of village dances and music. According to Sarkar these were the *Gandharvagrihitas*, and they probably anticipate the *apsaras* of Vedic and Pauranic tradition and the *ganikas* of later times. *Dasi*, though ordinarily a female slave, also served as a prostitute. *Dasa* in the *Rig Veda* is primarily an enemy and secondarily a slave, but *dasi* is a slave girl from the *Atharva Veda* onwards. This might indicate that the first conquered slaves were *dasa* women. In the later *Samhitas* she is a *Shudra*, which is probably an ethnological term. The early *Brahmanas* associate *dasis* and *Shudras* with the *rishis*, and *dasiputras* or sons of slave women were often assigned the same position as other *rishis* or teachers.