Hindu Law and Custom (Recht und Sitte) c7.562

c7.562

Already in the Gṛhyasūtras in the enumerations of the qualities which one should have an eye on when choosing a bride, we often come across the requirement that she should be *nagnikā* e. g. Vaikhānasa-gṛ. 3, 2, 1 (*nagnikām kanyām*), Hiraṇyakeśi-gṛ. 1, 19, 2 (*sajātām nagnikām* instead of which however there is also the other reading *sajātānagnikām* which conveys just the opposite sense) and Gobh. 3, 4, 6 (*nagnikā tu śreṣṭhā*) and Mānava-gṛ. 1, 7 (*nagnikām śreṣṭhām*) where however, if the last passage is interpreted according to the former, it would appear that the Nagnikā is only recommended as the best. It is all the same whether following some commentators the term *nagnikā* is interpreted literally as a girl still going naked—who wears no clothes, plays with grains of sand, is still a virgin and does not cover her nakedness for shame in the presence of a man or whether following the usual explanation it is taken to be a technical term for a girl not yet marriageable—a girl who is not yet grown up.