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Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1: Volume 1

Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1

Language
English

Contents

Volume 1

Front matter

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The Broadway Oriental Library *Edited by* C L E M E N T E G E R T O N

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SEXUAL LIFE IN ANCIENT INDIA

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The Broadway Oriental Library *Edited by* CLEMENT EGERTON

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Women under Primitive Buddhism *by* I. B. HORNER Sexual Life in Ancient India *by* J. J. MEYER The Political Philosophy of Confucius *by* LEONARD S. HSU Feasts and Songs of Ancient China *by* PROFESSOR M. GRANET *Other Volumes in Preparation*

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SEXUAL LIFE

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IN ANCIENT INDIA

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A STUDY IN THE COMPARATIVE HISTORY OF INDIAN CULTURE

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by JOHANN JAKOB MEYER

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VOLUME ONE

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LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LTD. BROADWAY HOUSE: 68-74 CARTER LANE, E.C. 1930

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Authorized Translation from the German, containing the emendations and additions of the Author. The extra references of one of the Translators are indicated by square brackets.

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PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY STEPHEN AUSTIN AND SONS, LTD., HERTFORD.

General Introduction

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THE BROADWAY ORIENTAL LIBRARY is intended, primarily, to appeal to that section of the educated public which, while not directly interested in the technical aspects of Oriental studies, is distinctly interested in their practical results. Those who are themselves specialists sometimes, perhaps, under-estimate the value of an attempt to put into untechnical language the conclusions at which experts like themselves have arrived. They fear that "popularization" must entail, if not the sacrifice of scientific accuracy, at least a relative disregard of scientific method in presentation. They are apt to assume that, unless the reader is himself a student of their particular subject, he is likely to be misled by a non-technical work. The Orientalist, especially, shows a reluctance to descend from the Olympian heights of the periodical literature of his learned society in order to make his work accessible and intelligible to the outsider, whose main desire is not to study the subject for its own sake, but for some other reason.

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Yet is is becoming increasingly difficult to confine fields of study to separate compartments, and, as the work which is being done by specialists is producing an enormous mass of new facts and new knowledge, it is becoming more and more essential for the non-expert to secure access to that part of the expert's conclusions which is germane to his own particular interest.

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There are, in fact, two distinct types of non-specialist reader. In the first place, there is the inveterate accumulator of information, who likes to know a little about everything, from the fabrication of green cheese to the structure of the atom; who hardly troubles to assimilate the information he acquires, and prefers, if possible, not to pay more than sixpence for each dose of it. For some reason, the expert has recently become far more generous to this type of reader than he would have dreamed of being twenty years ago.

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The other type is that of the educated man who realizes that his interest in particular problems of humanity demands that he should widen the sphere of his investigations and find out how those problems have arisen and been dealt with in other civilizations, at different stages in those civilizations and from varying angles and points of view.

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He may be interested, for example, in the pressing and clamorous problem of the relations of the sexes. He appreciates the necessity for a historical background to his study, so far as his own civilization is concerned, and this he can secure without any very great difficulty. But when a book appears or something happens which draws his attention to the same fundamental problem in another civilization, he is at a loss, because, so far as he is concerned, the necessary background is lacking. It is utterly irrational for a western reader to form a judgment or even an opinion upon the questions so luridly propounded in Miss Mayo’s *Mother India*, without such a background. It is also politically dangerous. Unfortunately, it has been very difficult to secure any such scientific and impartial attitude.

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The BROADWAY ORIENTAL LIBRARY is intended, in a measure, to meet the needs of the latter type of reader. It is not popular in the usual sense of the word. The two volumes of Professor Meyer’s work are not easy reading. But they make available in intelligible form, the results of years of highly specialized labour. They illustrate conceptions of Indian thought which have determined the whole attitude of Indian civilization in regard to the relations of the sexes, for two thousand years, and show how, for good or for evil, that attitude is fundamental.

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One of the most vital problems of the present day is that of the relations of the great civilizations one with another. Its solution depends upon a sound comprehension of the principles underlying those civilizations and their history. It is hoped that the BROADWAY ORIENTAL LIBRARY may be useful in this connection.

Editor's Introduction

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IN the preface to the German edition of this book, Professor Meyer tells us that it is an attempt to give a true and vivid account of the life of woman in ancient India, based upon the immense masses of material imbedded in the two great Epics, the *Mahābhārata* and the *Rāmāyaṇa*. His method has been to make liberal use of the very words of the Epics.

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The *Mahābhārata* seems to occupy an unique place in the literature of the world. Parts of it, like the *Bhagavad-gītā*, and the story of Nala and Damayantī, have become familiar to educated readers in almost every country of the west, but these are only fragments of an enormous work, consisting of about a hundred thousand couplets, of which Professor Macdonell says ¹:—

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¹ *India’s Past* (p. 88). Oxford, 1927.

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“Its epic kernel, amounting to about one-fifth of the whole work, became so much overgrown with didactic matter that it could hardly be regarded as an epic at all, and has rather taken the place of a moral encyclopaedia in Indian literature.”

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It provides us with most valuable sources of information about the relations of the sexes, and the concepts underlying those relations, in India fifteen hundred and more years ago.

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Professor Meyer has used the Bombay edition of the *Rāmāyaṇa*, and the second impression of the Bombay *Mahābhārata*. All his references which do not specify a particular title are to this version of the *Mahābhārata*. To some extent, he has consulted what he calls the Kumbakonam version “mainly based on the South Indian texts”. This he refers to as K.

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For the present translation, Professor Meyer has completely revised the German work, made various alterations in the text, and considerably enlarged the number of references.

Abbreviations

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SBE. Sacred Books of the East (edited by F. Max Müller). JAOS. Journal of the American Oriental Society. JRAS. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. ZDMG. Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft. WZKM. Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes.

Contents

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e. The man's seed sent off by bird-post to her that is ready for fertilization . . . . . . 223 f. Commerce with her that is still unclean strictly forbidden . 225

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VII.—THE PLEASURES OF SEX (SURATA)

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a. The woman's joy and vigour in the pleasures of love . . 229 b. Punishment for disturbing the surata (death during the sexual embrace) . . . . . . . 233 c. The joys of love as a healing herb . . . . 238 d. Means for heightening the powers and heroes in strength of love 239 e. Uncleanness of the surata . . . . . . 240 f. Regulation of the pleasures of sex (not in public, not outside the vulva, not by day or at certain other times, not with another woman than the wife) . . . . . 241 g. Punishments awaiting the lewd man in this life and in the other . . . . . . . . 246 h. The dreadfulness of intercourse with the teacher's wife or with a woman of higher caste . . . . . 251 i. Other details: not to look on a naked stranger woman, atonement for nightly pollution, a thoughtful hero of chastity, etc. . . . . . . . . 256

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VIII.—THE SEXUAL CONTINENCE OF MAN

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a. Value of chasity in general . . . . . . 258 b. The ascetic's complete sexual denial, its dignity, and power, its difficulty, and the means of keeping it . . . 258 c. The curber of his senses who was seduced by the woman . 260 d. The ascetic who was set in an orgasm through the sight only of a lovely woman . . . . . . 261

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IX.—THE PLEASURES OF VENAL LOVE: THE PUBLIC WOMAN

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a. Prostitution in full flower . . . . . . 264 b. The harlot a necessity of life; an important part of social life; she accompanies in war, the hunt, and other diversions 266 c. The woman of pleasure as an ornament to the festival, escort of honour for and attendant on the important guest . . 268 d. Condemnation of the venal woman . . . . . 273 the *dēmos* of Athens, and the *dēmos* of the other cities, were not merely the poor, but the whole body of citizens, including the rich, who were not members of the oligarchical clubs. The *dēmos* was the sovereign people, and the *dēmos* was the name of the party which supported the democratic constitution.

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The *dēmos* of Athens, however, was not a homogeneous body. It was divided into classes, and these classes were divided by economic interests. The *zeugitai* and the *thetes* were the backbone of the democracy, but they were not always in agreement. The *zeugitai* were the small farmers and artisans, who were interested in the stability of the state and the protection of their property. The *thetes* were the landless laborers, who were interested in the expansion of the empire and the distribution of the spoils of war.

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The *dēmos* of Athens was also divided by political interests. There were those who were loyal to the democracy, and those who were secretly working for its overthrow. The latter were the members of the oligarchical clubs, who were constantly plotting to seize power. They were the ones who were responsible for the revolution of 411 B.C., and they were the ones who were responsible for the reign of the Thirty Tyrants.

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The *dēmos* of Athens was a complex and contradictory body. It was capable of great wisdom and great folly, of great generosity and great cruelty. It was the *dēmos* that made Athens the greatest city in Greece, and it was the *dēmos* that brought about its downfall.

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The *dēmos* of Athens was not a static entity. It was constantly changing, evolving, and adapting to new circumstances. It was a living, breathing organism, and its history is the history of Athens itself.

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IN ANCIENT INDIA I THE MAID

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THE Mahābhārata in its present form is a composition from widely separated periods in the history of Old Indian literature, and its elements are derived from various parts of the Old Indian land. It was not written by one man, but it is the work contributed by many hands. It is a growth : one piece from here, another from there ; one from this time, another from that. Like an Indian jungle it spreads out before us in an endless wilderness of trees entwined and tangled with rank creepers, coloured and scented with manifold flowers and blossoms, and the home of every kind of living creature. Bewitching bird-song, the terrifying cries of wild beasts fall on our ears ; the poisonous snake winds its coils beside the mild dove ; the robber dwells therein, free, indeed, from the law, but often the slave of superstitions beyond belief ; and so the self-denying thinker with his eyes set above the earth, and his thoughts reaching into the depths of the world and of his soul. There lie the roots of a glowing, unbounded wealth of life, of a will strong beyond any other power ; and by their side are found the depths of dreaming, the heavy dead sleep of many thousand years, so that we should ourselves sink into it, too, were it not for the swarms of stinging flies. And so we could long go on, setting wonder against wonder, but hardly ever reaching an end to it all ! It is a “ great sea ”, to sail over which “ threefold bronze ” is needed, not, indeed, about the breast, but anyhow, about another, not so heroic part of the body.

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The Rāmāyaṇa, on the other hand, has a closer unity, it being, indeed, very generally attributed by the critics to one poet. But in this case, too, whether or no we put our faith in tradition, it is clear that from the very beginning various parts were brought together and made use of, and that later all kinds of interpolations and changes were made.

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Thus in very many points we can look for no inner consistency in either of the two great national Epics of India. In every human being, indeed, we can find a host of contradictions side by side; how much the more will they be found where so many minds have helped in the building up of one work. Both Epics bear the clearest Indian stamp; through both, too, runs one view only of the world: the Quietist view. But while this seems fairly natural to the Rāmāyaṇa, to the real stem of the Mahābhārata it is utterly strange, and has been only gradually grafted on to the mighty growth of the wild plant. The Rāmāyaṇa, indeed, is seen from the very beginning to be essentially soft, dreamy, fantastic, and deeply religious—to be a work of the Brahmans. On the other hand, the poetry of the Mahābhārata is often quickened in its older parts by a mighty flame of fire, a manly, undaunted, passionate soul: it was a warrior that sung this heroic song, whoever it may be to whom the “original Mahābhārata” may be referred. Later hands then fixed all kinds of labels on the pieces that had been preserved in greater perfection, utterly re-modelled much, inserted long pieces, and sought, well or ill, to give the whole the tendentious coating of Brahmanism. Out of a rugged epic, in which the proud warrior, boasting his strength and power, was the main, perhaps the only concern, it became the aim to glorify the priest as never before or since in the world’s literature, and at an early stage the paragon Arjuna and the wretched canting Yudhishṭhira were set in the place of Karṇa, the sun’s son, and of the mighty Duryodhana, without the result, however, of robbing the old and true heroes of all their splendour, not to speak of raising the utterly worthless favourites of the priests to the same heights.¹ Everywhere the structure of

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¹ The fact of this utter reversal of the earlier state of things is beyond any doubt. The explanation of this extraordinary phenomenon will perhaps always be a matter for conjecture. Despite a huge difference,

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THE MAID

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the Epic itself shows gaping joins and fissures. To this is added the heavy additional weight of the most diverse episodes and interpolations. In the details, too, of the observations and wearisome details as to God and the World, as to Man and his nature and actions, we very often find utter contradictions; and this is so whether the ruthless warrior or the softer thinker, the ardent ascetic or the sly priest is speaking, whether individual peculiarities, or the shades derived from time and place, or some other influence are to be seen.

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When, therefore, there are already so many contradictions found side by side, it is seen at once that, on the subject of that great bundle of contradictions, Woman and all belonging to her, or to speak more exactly, on the subject of the reflection of this object in the brain and heart of Man, the two great Epics, especially the Mahābhārata, contain very contradictory utterances, and that often one saying will flatly contradict another. This lies first of all in the nature of the Indian. In other lands, too, the attitude of the feelings and thoughts of man towards woman very often undergoes changes according to the state of mind and experience of life, and above all according to personal experience of the fairer half of mankind, not to speak of the more or less dominating deeper character of the individual, or other influences. And thus even in the cooler West the proverbs, the songs, the tales, and so forth about women make up the most twisted bundle in the world. In the soul of the Indian there dwells that twin pair, burning sensuality and stark renunciation of the world and the flesh. What a delight and torment then must woman be to him! And

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Duryodhana reminds me strongly of Saul in the Old Testament, Yudhishṭhira of David. The Pāṇḍava are favourites of the priestly party, and doubtless did not win this place for nothing. These evidently non-Aryan intruders may have hidden the multitude of their sins, after the way only too well-known, with the cloak of priestly fawning, as crafty “converts” to Brahmanism. The Kaurava, on the contrary, as the doughty champions of the warrior nobility, probably aroused the undying hatred of the Brahmans. Since writing this I have come upon the excellent remarks of W. Crooke, *The North-Western Provinces of India* (1897), p. 65, where he describes the spirit of the two Epics as I have done.

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since he is wont to express his impressions and views with great violence, has no fear of any deduction and drives everything to its utmost end, we might put together a more than gigantic folio volume on woman from Indian literature, whose various parts would only have this in common : their contradiction of one another.

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But I think that there is one thing that can be picked out, from the nature of the Indian we have just been describing, as a specific attribute : among other peoples, or among the Western civilized nations, we find a more delicate colouring, more individuality, a greater variety and richness in the variations on the inexhaustible theme of woman. In India, on the other hand, two personalities, above all, though by no means exclusively, are heard : the voluptuary and the renouncer. This, of course, does not at all necessarily mean that the former will only praise woman and the latter only condemn her, for we know that it is very often those who run after women who despise them most heartily, and any true regard for them must be quite lacking in such men ; and whether we are friendly inclined or otherwise towards the sex, it offers the keen observer so rich and varied a material that in this case a wholly one-sided view or even a feeling of boredom is only possible to a narrow head and heart. The Hindu shows, indeed, a keen observation at all times when he has to do with the way of the world; that is why hardly any other people has so great a proverbial wisdom; and there has been no want in India of moderate men, standing rather between the extremes.

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Thus it is that the Indian in particular, in his views on woman and love, has from very early times shown that capacity for living in earnest, for ethics, for healthy feeling, which with him ever and again in other fields, too, makes itself felt through every kind of dissoluteness : on filth and corruption it will not seldom bring forth to the light of day even sweet flowers of lovely colours. So it is that woman, above all as a loving wife and tender mother—woman, that is, in her most natural and fairest calling—has nowhere else found greater and more heartfelt appreciation; in most literatures, indeed, there is far less. Let anyone, for instance, set what has been

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written in Old India beside what was written in the Middle Ages, or beside Romance, in particular old and even modern French literature; in spite of so many, not always edifying, though nearly always interesting refinements, there is wafted to us from the world of the Old Indian books a deeply ethical spirit, one might even say a wholesomeness, which has a very pleasing effect in contrast with the so often empty frivolity—the nauseating filthiness and vulgarity—that meets us out of those other literatures. To put it otherwise and not to wander abroad: the Old Indian loose tales, indeed, in spite of the cautionary thread running all through them, have not been trimmed and put together by literary tailors working for girls' schools; and yet they are like real moral strait-waistcoats, when compared with a great many of the more or less highly praised productions of the later and latest German writers.

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It is now well known, and it has been stressed by many with a special knowledge of India, that these two great Epics still exert an influence to-day on the mind and the life of the Hindu people like no other literary work.¹ There is the further fact that the literature of the "post-Epic" times is often very greatly dependent on the Epic, or influenced in many places by it. Owing to these inner relations between the Epic and the Classical literature, there thus arises, furthermore, a far-reaching indirect influence. What Indian woman (to speak only of the obvious) did not know and honour Sītā and Sāvitrī and other heroines of the Epic poems!

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¹ So J. C. Oman, *The Great Indian Epic*, London, 1906, p. 1 ff.; Nisikantha Chattopādhyāya in his *Indian Essays*; Sister Nivedita, *The Web of Indian Life*, London, 1906, pp. 95-115; Rāmakrishna, *Life in an Indian Village*, London, 1891, p. 142 ff.; Basanta Koomar Roy, *Rabindra Nath Tagore* (New York, 1915), p. 28; W. Crooke, *The North-Western Provinces of India* (London, 1897), p. 256.

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The Epic, however, in many respects only gives us very fragmentary information about woman and her life and the value set on her among the Old Indians. But in general it is only a section of Old Indian life that is opened before us in the Epic poems. How much, indeed, do we learn as to the great mass of the people! The warrior and the Brahman take all our attention for themselves. I sing arms and the priest ! But happily there is incidentally a lot more besides in those huge works, and on our theme, too. Poetry can do without the husbandman and the burgher, but take away woman and you cut its very life away.

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But however important woman is, her entry into the city of life is seldom hailed on this earth with hosannas and palm-strewn roads; nor is she met with the blare of trumpets that joyfully greets the warrior-hero.¹ She is neither a world-

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¹ How unwelcome girls are among the various peoples and tribes has been, of course, often described. It will be enough to refer to Ploss-Bartels, *Das Weib in der Natur- und Völkerkunde* 4, i, 247 ff., ii, 473; and Westermarck, *The History of Human Marriage* 3, London, 1901, p. 311 ff.; Elsie Clews Parsons, *The Old-Fashioned Woman*, 201 ff. On India see, for instance, Rāmabai Sarasvati, *The High Caste Hindu Woman*, and Billington, *Woman in India*, p. 1 ff.; James Tod, *Rajasthan* (that is, *Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan*, popular ed., Calcutta), i, 670 ff.; S. C. Bose, *The Hindoos as They Are* (1881), pp. 24, 28, 216 ff.; Bulloram Mullick, *Home Life in Bengal*, p. 68, 103. The Arabs before Mohammed seem to be the most brutal among the barbarians, for they simply buried girl-children alive. Hauri, *Der Islam*, p. 8; Finck, *Primitive Love and Love Stories*, p. 32; Schweiger-Lerchenfeld, *Die Frauen des Orients*, 63 f.; Hartmann, *Zeitsch. d. Vereins f. Volkskunde*, Bd. ii, p. 240; Welhausen, *Göttinger Nachrichten*, 1893, p. 458; and, above all, *Anthropos*, Bd. iii, p. 62 ff. A sentence in this last may be given here, which could have been written of far too many other places on the earth: Il est d'usage parmi les Bedouins que quand un garçon vient au monde, il est annoncé à la famille et à tous les voisins par des cris de joie qui se répètent d'une tente à l'autre, mais quand c'est une fille qui vient augmenter le nombre des membres de la famille on garde le silence le plus absolu, accompagné de toutes les marques de la tristesse, qu'on laisse voir à tout le monde (p. 65). When we find here too the statement that many beat the poor wife that has brought a girl into the world, we may also refer perhaps to Fr. S. Krauss, *Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven* (1885), p. 540 f., and also to p. 592 ff. According to McLennan's theory (*Primitive Marriage*, especially p. 75 ff.) that once all the peoples of the world were exogamous owing to girl-killing, all tribes and hordes must then have done away with their daughters—an unexampled piece of nonsense. As an opposite example, the Abipones of Paraguay may be named, who

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redeemer nor a world-shaker, but Saṃsārahetu, the “source of the world”, the cause of the Sansara, in which, as the Indian says, pleasure, and above all the pleasure of love, is but pain. The birth of a daughter is in general not an object of his wishes. Thus xii, 243.20, says : “The eldest brother is the same as the father, wife and son are a man’s own body, his servants are the man’s shadow, the daughter is the bitterest woe.” And i, 159.11 : “The son is his very self, the wife a friend, but the daughter is known for a misfortune.”¹ We can thus well understand that among the dreadful omens boding the many deaths in the fight between the Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas, this one, too, appears : “Many women will bear four and five girls”—and probably at one birth (vi, 3.7). Not to mention anything else, it is only the son who can bring his forbears that offering so absolutely needed for happiness in the other world. With a daughter this can only be done indirectly—through her sons. And that is always an unsure thing. For against wedding with such a maiden advice is given by the Epic (xiii, 44.15), as also by the Smṛiti or law literature.² But whatever the event, the important thing is to marry the girl off fittingly. And here there lies a source of sorrow for the parents. Thus in v, 97.15, 16, we hear the wretched father of the marriageable daughter call out “Shame on the coming of a daughter into the house of men of strong character, who are distinguished, praiseworthy, and of kind disposition. The mother’s kindred, the father’s, and they to whom she is given—three families—are brought to danger by the daughter of

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¹ Cf. Weber’s *Indische Studien*, v, p. 260, 265; Windisch, *Buddhas Geburt*, etc., p. 60; Winternitz, *Gesch. d. ind. Liter.*, i, 184; Çukranīti (ed. Oppert), iii, 520-3; Otto Stein, *Megasthenes u. Kautilya* (Vienna, 1921), 68, note 3; J. J. Meyer, *Kautilya*, 480.3-4; addit. 480.37; also Schrader, *Die Indogermanen*, 101 f.; Feist, *Kultur, Ausbreitung u. Herkunft d. Indogermanen* (1913), p. 108; 299 f.

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² Manu, iii, 11; Gautama, xxviii, 20; Yājñavalkya, i, 53.

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mainly killed the boys, as a wife had to be bought for them, while the girls could be profitably disposed of. Finck, *Primitive Love*, p. 587. Marriage by purchase, not very honourable in itself, has yet been of much effect in enhancing the value of daughters and wife.

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good men.” For no one knows how things will go, whether the bride will lead a good life, or bring happiness.¹ What, indeed, shows itself most is the anxiety whether a bridegroom will be found who will do honour through his blood, character, and so forth. This is what we often find in the Mahābhārata, and so, for instance, Rām., vii, 9.10-11 : “To be the father of a daughter is an affliction for him that seeks after honour, and no one knows who will (or shall) take a maiden to his house ; thus it is, O daughter. The mother’s kindred, the father’s, and they to whom she goes in marriage—three families are brought ever into danger by a daughter.” Essentially the same thought is uttered by a harassed father who goes about trying to find a husband for his daughter, in the 12th sarga, çl. 11-12. It is well known that in India often the whole family will ruin itself in the endeavour to find a thoroughly good match for the daughter, and give her a wedding befitting its standing.² Having regard to all the evils brought down by a daughter, we very easily understand why the Hindu often hails her without much joy. But the love for children, which is so strong in the Indian, is also felt towards her, and so Bāṇa very finely declares that the parents are saddened at the birth of a girl, as they think of the day when a bridegroom will rob them of the loved one.³ And little light as the Epic throws on

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¹ Cp. Jāt., Nos. 102, 217 (it is not known how the daughter bids to fare in the husband’s house). An eloquent description of the sorrows and woes a daughter gives her parents from birth, on account of her marriage, is to be found in Bose, *The Hindoos as They Are* (1881), p. 219 ff. ; Bulloram Mullick, *Home Life in Bengal*, p. 108 ff.

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² This costs at least 200 dollars in the upper classes (Rāmabai Sarasvati, p. 12), and even the peasant weddings are dear (cp. Sir B. Fuller, *Studies of Indian Thought and Sentiment*, London, 1910, p. 155 f.). On the Rājput see especially Tod, *Rajasthan*, i, p. 672 ff.

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³ Harshacarita, translated by Cowell and Thomas, p. 122. A beautiful picture is given in MBh., iii, 32.60-63 : King Drupada has his sons taught the prudent way of life by a wise Brahman who lives as a guest in his house. The father sits there, and when his little daughter comes with any message or errand he lifts her up onto his lap, and she listens eagerly to the teacher’s words. He then speaks coaxing words to her, and the little girl, to supplement these crumbs she has caught up, gets from her brothers a repetition of the master’s

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the life of the unwedded girl, yet we may take to be true for the Epic world what is told us of the happy time spent by the Indian girl before she goes to her husband’s house in, for instance, Ramabai Sarasvati, *The High Caste Hindu Woman* (London, 1890), p. 23, and the far too romantic Sister Nivedita, *The Web of Indian Life* (London, 1906), p. 35. Thus we read of the merry game which the girls enjoyed in the evening in the pleasure groves (Rām., ii, 67.17; cf. 71.22). The ball-game of the grown-up girls, often referred to in the Classical literature, and described at such length in the Daçakumāracaritam (p. 290 ff. of my translation), is also found in the Epic. Çāntā plays ball in iii, 111.16. The small girls, too, amuse themselves in this way (v, 90.63). The balls used would seem to have been very finely coloured, at any rate those of the upper classes (iii, 112.10).¹ Bhīshma declares: “The son is as one’s very self; the daughter is like the son. How could it be, so long as she is alive, that any other should have the property?” (xiii, 45.11). Then he sets forth

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¹ How the ball-game befitted the fascination of a young girl, and how she strengthened her conquest by it is to be gathered, too, from Bhāgavata-Purāṇa, viii, 12.15 ff.: Rudra or Çiva comes on a visit to Viṣṇu. The latter by his Māyā (magic) calls up a bewitchingly fair maiden, who plays at ball, and whose garments are carried off by the wind. Although Çiva’s wife is beside him he rushes up to the charmer and then goes after her as she wrests herself from his grip; in the pursuit *semen ejus ejicitur*. It goes, of course, without saying that in the Epic the girl plays with dolls. But when Hopkins, because Uttarā still took pleasure in this at the time of her marriage, concludes she was still in her childhood, he makes a mistake. Cf. Billington, *Woman in India*, p. 215; Çrīvara’s Kathākautukam, Sanskrit and German by R. Schmidt, vi, 15, 48, 69.

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wisdom, doubtless told very solemnly. How greatly the daughter is loved is described, too, e.g. in Leumann, *Die Nonne, ein Roman aus d. alten Indien*, strophe 107 ff., 125 ff., 423 ff.; Kupabai Satthianadhu, *Kamala* (Leipzig, 1898), p. 120. Of the Rājput we are told by James Tod, *Rajasthan* (*Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan*, first popular ed., Calcutta), that there are few among even the lowest of the chiefs whose daughters are not taught to read and write (i, p. 676). So, too, Shib Chunder Bose, *The Hindoos as They Are*, p. 226. But see, for instance, Ramabai Sarasvati, p. 57.

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that the mother’s own portion falls to the lot of the girl ; the property shall be inherited by the daughter’s son from the father that has no sons. For he bestows the ancestral food-cakes for his own father and for his mother’s father. In law there is no difference between one’s own son and the daughter’s son. The daughter, too, takes precedence of the son that is born elsewhere, that is, who is not the son of the body ; according to the commentary, she takes three-fifths of the estate. So we find in xiii, 47.25 f. : “ That which was given by her father to the wife from the Brahman caste, O Yudhishṭhira, shall be taken by the daughter. For she is equal to the son.” 1

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1 There is no distinction between son’s son and daughter’s son (Manu, ix, 130; Vishṇu, xv, 47). If there are no sons, and also the mother is dead, then the daughter inherits the father’s property, and no one else; for she is sprung from his body just like the son (Nārada, xiii, 50; Bṛihaspati, xxv, 55 ff.; Yājñavalkya, ii, 135 f.; Vishṇu, xvii, 4 ff.). But cp. Āpastamba, ii, 6, 14, 2-6; Gautama, xxviii, 21 ff.; Vasiṣṭha, xvii, 81 ff.; Manu, ix, 185 ff. (and Bühler’s notes on it, SBE, xxv, p. 365). So the Mahānirvāṇatantra, xii, 36, states that the daughter of the man without wife or son gets the father’s inheritance, even if there is a brother of the father’s; and according to 55 the daughter-in-law or the granddaughter inherits before the dead man’s own father. According to Vishṇu, xviii, 34 f., the mother and the unmarried daughter get a share of the man’s estate according to the son’s share (putrabhāgānusāreṇa), that is to say, exactly so much as the sons who are equal to them in the caste have the right to inherit, an arrangement, therefore, which provides for a testator with wives of differing castes, and probably only for one without a son. If the father share out his estate himself, then according to Nārada, xiii, 13, the unwedded daughter receives as much as the sons between the eldest and youngest. But cp. Bṛihaspati, xxv, 64; Manu, ix, 118; Yājñav., ii, 124 (the brothers must give the unwedded sisters a fourth part of their own share). According to Yāska’s Nirukta, iii, 4, the children inherit equally, regardless of sex (see Bühler’s Manu, p. lxi). The woman’s estate or mother’s own property (strīdhana, yautuka) falls to her daughter. Vishṇu, xvii, 18 ff.; Gautama, xxviii, 24; Baudhāyana, ii, 2, 3, 43; Yājñavalkya, ii, 143-5; Agnipurāṇa, transl. by Manmatha Nath Dutt, p. 925, etc. Cp., too, especially Manu, ix, 130-9; J. J. Meyer, Über das Wesen d. altind. Rechts-schriften u. ihr Verhältnis zu einander u. zu Kauṭilya (Leipzig, 1927), p. 73 ff.

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The sight of pretty and well-dressed girls and being greeted by them with festal honour brings good luck if one is minded to take an important step (vii, 82.22 ; cp. 7.9 ; 112.62 ff. ; xiii, 11.14). Eight girls are named as important objects of good luck on the occasion of the preparations for consecrating Rāma as crown-prince (Rām., ii, 14.36) ; and when at last he comes back from exile and marches to his solemn consecration as king, there go before him, as bringing weal : unhusked corn, gold, cows, young girls, and Brahmans, as also men with sugar-cakes in their hands ; and in his sprinkling or initiation into the rank of prince, maidens also take a part, sixteen in number, as the commentator points out (Rām., vi, 128, çl. 38, 62 ; cp. MBh., v, 140, 14 f.).¹ And like other Indian literature the Mahābhārata shows how a man can get a daughter. According to xiii, 87.10, this is brought about through the ancestral offering on the second day of the dark half of the month. There is other information in xiii, 104.151 ; iii, 83.190. See also xiii, 83.51 ; i, 116.12 (a daughter is longed for). This we shall speak of later.

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¹ In the body of the wedded and the unwedded woman alike there dwells, too, Çrī, the goddess of happiness and beauty (Viṣṇu, xcix, 14), and girls and women also turn aside the “ evil eye ” (dṛṣṭi-parihāra). Cf. Edgar Thurston, *Omens and Superstitions of Southern India* (1912), pp. 15-17, 23, 118. To see women is lucky according to MBh., ix, 56, 24 f.

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We find even quite spoiled daughters. Thus i, 76 ff., tells us : “ The gods and the Dānavas fight with one another for leadership. Çukra, the sacrificial priest of the Dānavas, knows the charm for bringing back life, and keeps on calling back to life the Dānavas who fall in the fight. The sacrificial priest of the gods, Bṛhaspati, cannot do this. So the heaven-dwellers are at a great drawback. They induce Kaca, Bṛhaspati’s young son, to go and be a disciple of Çukra, by telling him ‘ Thou and no other, canst win favour with Devayānī, the beloved daughter of this high-minded one. When once thou hast gladdened Devayānī through a virtuous character, skill, friendliness, right living, and self-control, then thou wilt of a surety win this charm for awakening the dead.’ ” Çukra takes him. “ So as to win the favour of both, the youth would ever gladden Devayānī with singing, dancing, and music. He waited on the maiden, who was in her youth, and rejoiced her with flowers, fruits, and services. Devayānī, too, secretly gave careful heed to this Brahman youth who zealously carried out vows and holy works, as she sang and trifled before him.” The Dānavas, however, saw him in the forest as he was herding his teacher’s cows, questioned him, and killed and cut him up, and gave him to the wolves to eat, all out of enmity towards Bṛhaspati, and in order that the magic for bringing back to life, so useful to them, should not become known to the gods.

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The cows came back in the evening without their herd. Devayānī saw this, and said to her father: “Evidently Kaca has been killed or has died. Without him I do not want to live; I swear it thee.” Çukra made use of his spell for bringing back to life: Kaca broke out of the wolves’ bellies, and showed himself hale and whole before the teacher and his daughter. On another day Devayānī sent him into the forest to bring flowers. The Dānavas crushed him, and mixed him up with the sea’s waters. And again the teacher called him back to life. But the third time the foes ground him to powder, put it in brandy-wine, and gave the mixture to Çukra to drink. Devayānī spoke and said: “Kaca went forth on my service to bring flowers, and he is no longer to be seen. Clearly he has been slain or is dead. Without Kaca I will not live; that I swear unto thee.” The father put it to her that she need not take so much thought of Kaca, since she had the choice of Brahmans, gods, and demons. The luckless fellow, he said, is indeed always being killed. But she exclaimed: “He is chaste, and greatly ascetic, always ready and skilled in all contrivances. I shall follow Kaca, and hunger myself to death. I love the handsome Kaca.” So it came to yielding, and her father began his spell. But now came the quandary: the disciple had to obey, and yet could not; for he could not come out of the teacher’s belly without, at the same time, bringing death on him.

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This the anguished one brought to the teacher’s knowledge in moving words, speaking from the wizard’s body, and telling him how he had been drunk down together with the brandy-wine. Devayānī knew no consolation: “Two sorrows burn me like fire: Kaca’s death, and the annihilation threatening thee. If Kaca dies then there is no salvation for me; and if thou art destroyed, then I cannot live.” But Çukra found a way out : he initiated the disciple into the magic spell, who broke out of the teacher’s belly, and brought back the dead man to life again with all speed. Çukra was now filled with anger against the evil brandy-wine, that had brought about the whole misfortune, and forbade it* to the Brahman for all time with great solemnity and under dreadful threats of punishment. Kaca now wished to go back to the gods, and took leave of the teacher. Devayānī went to meet him and besought him earnestly to wed her. But he had no wish to, and came out of it by urging that she as his teacher’s daughter, was honourable in his sight, and, moreover, was now his sister, since both of them had now abode in Çukra’s body.

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The loving girl, however, made answer : “If thou dost scorn me for love for virtue, although I have asked thee with tears, then this magic knowledge will be nought in thine hands.” He told her that he was unwilling only because he would not offend against the old holy laws, and since she had cursed him so unjustly and unfoundedly, her wish would not be fulfilled : no son of a Rishi would take her with him as wife.¹ So he went back to the gods, taught them the magic, and they were now made happy. They then exhorted Indra to show his valour. He set forth, but saw maidens bathing in the forest and playing in the water. Then he changed himself into a wind, and tossed their clothes about. When they came out of the water, they took the wrong clothes. The bathing girls were Devayānī and Çarmishṭhā, the daughter of the Daitya prince Vṛishaparvan, together with the princess’s followers. Çarmishṭhā happened to lay hold of the clothes of her friend, Devayānī; the latter rebuked Çarmishṭhā : “Why art thou, my disciple, taking my clothes? Wicked girl, it will not go well with thee.” Çarmishṭhā answered : “Whether my father is sitting or lying down, thy father as a court singer ever praises him, and stands humbly far below. For thou art the daughter of him that begs, that praises, that takes; I am the daughter of him that is praised, that grants, that never takes.² Burn away, hurt thyself, be abusive, be angered, thou beggar!

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Thou hast nought, thou art weaponless, and art upset over her that is armed, thou eater of alms. Thou shalt find someone who is a match for thee; thou art nothing to me.”¹ Ҫarmishthā, bent on evil, threw Devayānī, who was in a rage of pride,² and kept hold of the clothes, into a well, and went back to her town, believing within herself: “She is no more.” Without taking any more thought about her, she went into her house filled with mad anger.

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¹ That is, no man of the Brahman caste.

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² Cp. Baudhāyana’s law book, ii, 2, 4.26 (= ii, 2.79-80).

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¹ In the MBh. the man of the warrior nobility is always declaring that his kind does not ask and takes nothing; “grant me,” he utters of only one thing: of fighting. Only the Brahmans beg; begging is, indeed, their faithful mate; but the Kshattriya owns and enjoys that only which he has won with his own might. See, for instance, i, 92.13 ff.; iii, 154.10; v, 75.23; 120.19; xii, 199.42, 74, 82, 112. As here, so the warrior, times beyond telling, shows us in the MBh., how removed from the priestly class he feels himself, and how deeply his lordly pride scorns it. For this cp., too, the excellent account of Hopkins, JAOS, xiii, 151-62; Fick, *Die soziale Gliederung*, etc., 51 ff., 64. But the nobility is left far and away behind by the mad pretensions of the priestly caste, which has given the poem its present form, and fully indemnifies itself through its one and only weapon—the word, as the MBh. repeatedly points out. Indeed, it has, as is well known, preached the taking of gifts as actually one of its good works, and in xiii, 121.14, we read the pronouncement: “The taker wins the same merit as the giver; for nothing rolls on one wheel, as the holy seers know.” It is only the bestower then, that owes thankfulness; he is given the chance to win high religious blessing by deeds.

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² Samucchraya. Cp. vi, 44.6, where, however, “high-billowing fight” would also fit in, and vi, 99.29, where the word = yuddha.

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Then came thither Yayāti, Nahusha’s son, with a wearied team, and wearied horses, hunting after game, and athirst. Nahusha’s son saw the waterless well and saw this maiden in it, like a flame of fire. And when he had seen her he asked the maiden, who was like a goddess, he the best among princes asked her, as he reassured her with most sweet and soft words: “Who art thou, fair maid, with the red nails and shining jewels and ear-rings?³ Long and over-much hast thou been given up to gloomy thoughts. And wherefore dost thou torture

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³ Or, ear-rings of precious stones.

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thyself with care? And how hast thou fallen into this plant-and grass-covered well? And whose daughter art thou? Speak the truth, maiden with the lovely waist!” Devayānī spoke: “I am that Çukra’s daughter, he who brings back to life again the Daityas slain by the gods. He knows of a surety nothing about me. Here is my right hand with its red-nailed fingers. Take me, and draw me out. For I know thou art of noble birth. I can see in thee a man of calm soul, of bravery, and of renown. Therefore mayest thou draw me, who have fallen in here, out of this well.” When the king, Nahuṣa’s son, had learned she was a Brahman’s daughter, he took her by the right hand and pulled her out of that pit. And when the prince Yayāti had pulled her quickly out of this well, he took his leave of the fair-hipped one, and went off to his town. When Nahuṣa’s son had gone, Devayānī, the spotless one, spoke, torn with grief, to her handmaid, Ghūrṇikā, who had come from the town: “Ghūrṇikā, go quickly and tell my father: ‘I shall not set foot now any more in the town of Vṛṣaparvan.’” Ghūrṇikā went quickly into the Asura’s castle, and when she saw Çukra she spoke to him with a soul filled with emotion, told the very wise one that Devayānī had been slain in the forest by Çarmisṭhā, the daughter of Vṛṣaparvan. When Çukra heard that his daughter had been slain there in the forest by Çarmisṭhā, he hastened out filled with woe, looking for his child.

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Then when Çukra had seen his daughter in the forest, he clasped her in his arms and spoke the words: “Through their own misdeeds (in an earlier being) all men do compel happiness and unhappiness to themselves.¹ I think thou hast done some evil, and the punishment for it has been thus inflicted.” Devayānī spoke: “Never mind about punishment! Listen carefully to me: Is it true what Çarmisṭhā, daughter of Vṛṣaparvan, said unto me? She said thou wert the singer of the Daityas. That is what I was told by Çarmisṭhā, Vṛṣaparvan’s daughter, in sharp, bitter words, with her eyes deep-reddened by anger: ‘Thou art but the daughter of him that praises; that ever asks and accepts; but I am the daughter of him that is praised, that bestows and never accepts.’ That is what Çarmiṣṭhā, Vṛṣaparvan’s daughter, said to me over and over again with anger-reddened eyes and filled with pride. Father, if I am the daughter of him that praises and accepts, then will I beg forgiveness of Çarmiṣṭhā. That I have said to my friend.” Çukra spoke : “Thou art not the daughter of one that praises, that asks, that accepts; the daughter thou art of one that praises not, of one that is praised, Devayānī. Vṛṣaparvan knows that, and Indra and King Yayāti. For the Brahman that is beyond all thinking and has nothing twofold is my kingly power.¹ And whatever there be anywhere in heaven and earth,² I am ever proclaimed as its lord by the rejoicing, self-sprung being (Brahma).

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I make the water to flow for the weal of creatures, I make all plants to grow. This truth I swear unto thee.” Thus in friendly wise did the father speak in sweet, gentle words to this girl that had fallen into doubt, that was tortured with indignation : “Let that human being, that bears ever with patience the taunting speech of others, know, O Devayānī, that he has won this All. He that bridles his rising anger, like a steed, that one is called a leader by the good, not he who pulls at the horse’s reins. He that drives forth his rising anger by his freedom from anger, know, O Devayānī, that such a one has overcome this All. He that throws off his rising anger by a mild patience, as the snake does its old skin, such a one is indeed called a man. He that holds his ill-humour in check, he that calmly bears evil report, and he that, when he is tormented, does not torment, such a one is indeed a vessel of profit. If one man, month by month through a hundred years, without wearying, makes sacrifice, and another is not angered by anything (or : against anyone), then of the two he that is not angered is the greater. If boys and girls heedlessly weave enmity, the wise man shall not imitate them; for they do not know what strength and weakness is.” Devayānī spoke :

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¹ Or simply: bring on themselves. Niyacchati=get for oneself, obtain, is often found in the MBh. (for instance, iii, 207.66; v, 64.19; 72.62; 163.41; vii, 199.33; xii, 290.24; 307.40; xiii, 48.42 f.; xiii, 57.21; 59.21; 143.51; xv, 34.8).

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¹ Or : for the holy knowledge beyond all thought is my lordship and strength (or, warlike power) without rival. Cp. xii, 141.64.

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² Or, less likely : and that which in heaven and on earth is the everywhere existing something (“the thing-in-itself”).

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“ Father, though I am but a young girl, yet I know what the difference is on earth between the duties. And as to not being angered, and as to speech, I know what strength is and what weakness is. But that a pupil should bear himself unlike such, that, indeed, none should suffer who would fain be of any worth. Therefore it pleases me not to dwell among such as bring the rightful way into confusion, for the wise man striving after his weal shall not dwell among ill-minded folk that by their behaviour and origin are a stumbling-block unto others. But those that by their behaviour and origin grant him acknowledgment, among good men such as these shall he dwell; this is called the best abode. The dreadful evil, spoken by Vṛishaparvan’s daughter in her words, tears my heart, as he that seeks fire tears the kindling-wood. For I deem nothing in the three worlds to be harder than to look, when robbed of fame and happiness, on the fame and happiness of the rival. Death is the best thing for such a one, as those that know acknowledge.”

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Thereupon Çukra, the best among the race of the Bhrigus, went, ill-pleased, and, without further thought, spoke as follows to Vṛishaparvan on his throne : “ The evil that has been done does not at once bring forth its fruit, like the earth (gaur iva); slowly rolling along, it gnaws at the roots of the doer. In the sons and grandsons, if he does not feel it in himself, the evil, of a surety, makes itself known, like something heavy which a man has eaten, in the body.¹ Since thou didst kill the Brahman Kaca then, the Angiras who did no evil, who knew virtue, was obedient, and rejoiced in my family, because of the murder of that innocent one and because of the murder of my daughter—hear me, O Vṛishaparvan—I leave thee and thy kindred. I cannot dwell together with thee in thy kingdom, O king. Ah ! thou takest me for an empty chatterer, O Daitya, that thou dost not hold back from this sin of thine, but dost look on it calmly.” Vṛishaparvan spoke : “ I know of no evil and no empty words in thee, O son of Bhrigu ; in thee do dwell righteousness and truth. Therefore grant us mercy and forgiveness. If thou leavest us and goest forth, we shall leap into the sea, we have no other refuge.” Çukra spoke : “ Leap into

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