Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.126

v1.c5.126

¹ What is, perhaps, very generally known from the novel *Nena Sahib*, by Sir John Ratcliffe (a Berlin writer whose real name I cannot now with certainty call to mind) is borne witness to by the *Centuries* of Hāla for older times, too; there the ānamdavaḍa, “the cloth (garment) of bliss” is publicly shown with rejoicings on the morning following the bridal night; though in this case it is not dyed with “the shed blood of innocence”, for a young rascal goes by it and slily grins to himself (No. 457). Particularly rich in information here is Kauṭilya. See my translation (Leipzig, 1926), p. 357.6 ff.; 35 ff. The little tricks of the ladies, of which Brantôme can tell us, were, then, already known in Old India. He tells us that down to his time in Spain after the *depucellement* of brides their *linge teint de gouttes de sang* was publicly shown through the window, with loud cries of: Virgen la tenemos, and that there was a like custom in Viterbo. Then he entertains us with an account of how those daughters of Eve, who have already nibbled from the tree of knowledge, supply what is lacking by art, and with a merry tale of one who quite fruitlessly made use of the red juice she had so carefully brought with her, and fruitlessly for the same reason that Iseult White-hand fortifies herself so strongly to no purpose against the storming of her treasury of love (Heinrich von Freiberg, *Tristan*, 698 ff.). See Brantôme, *Œuvres compl*. ed. du Panthéon lit. vol. ii, pp. 242 b, 332 b. Among the Yurakara in South America, the smock of the bridal night was carried round in triumph (Mantegazza, *Geschlechtsverhältnisse*, p. 253). The Arabs, too, publicly show the stained bed-clothes (*Anthropos*, iii, p. 184 f.). So, too, among the South Slavs, the bed-linen and the bride’s smock are or were searched for the signs of maidenhead, and the happy find was hailed with joy (Krauss, *Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven*, pp. 225, 461 f.). Quite the same thing happens among the Russians and other Slavs (*Zeits. d. Ver. f. Volkskunde*, Bd. 15, p. 438 f.), as also among the Turks in Bulgaria (ibid., Bd. 4, p. 272). Among the Fô in Togo the man sends the bedding next morning to the mother-in-law, and if this is not marked as it should be, the parents have to find out the evil-doer (*Anthropos*, vii, 296). Cf. 5 Moses, xxii, verses 15-17; and further Ploss-Bartels, *Das Weib*⁴, i, pp. 365 ff.; my transl. of Kauṭilya, 358.27 ff.