Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.379

v1.c5.379

woman is asked for sour rice gruel, she shakes her buttocks, and utters—she, infatuated with giving¹—these dreadful words: ‘Let none ask me for my beloved sour rice gruel. My son I would give, my husband I would give, but I would not give sour rice gruel.’ Pale-faced (gauryas), big, shameless are the Madra women, clad in woollen wraps, greedy, and usually without cleanliness or neatness. Thus do we hear” (viii, 40).² In the forty-fourth canto Karṇa, among many other bitter draughts, knows how to pour out the following for Çalya, the king of those parts (a Brahman brought in by Karṇa speaks): “The people dwelling between the five streams and the Indus as sixth, these that are outside the law, and also the unclean Bāhīkas, let men shun... When the women have taken heady drink of corn and molasses and taken cows’ flesh with garlic—they, who eat cakes, flesh, and roasted barley, and know not the ways of goodness, sing and dance, drunk and unclothed, on the earth-walls of the city and of the houses, without wreaths and unanointed, and amidst drunken, lewd songs (avagīta) of various kinds, which sound like the noise of asses and camels. They know no bridle³ in their pairing, and in all things they follow their lust. They utter fine sayings against one another, they, who hold forth maddened by the drink: ‘Ho there, ye outcasts! Ho, ye outcasts! Cast off by your husband, cast off by your lord!’ Screaming, this refuse of women dance at the festivals, putting no restraint upon themselves. A husband of these foul, evil women of the Bāhīkas, one that dwelt in Kurujāṅgala, sang with but little rejoicing soul: ‘She the tall one, the fair (gaurī) one, clad in a thin wool wrap, lies, I know, and thinks of me, the Bāhika in Kurujāṅgala. When I have crossed the Çatadru and the delightful Irāvatī, and come into my home, then shall I see the great-shelled,¹ splendid women, the outward corners of whose eyes² shine with red-lead, the light-skinned women anointed³ with ointment from the mountain of Trikakud, wrapped in woollen cloaks and skins, fair to look on.’” Then we are further told how the Bāhikas strengthen themselves with cakes, groats, and butter-milk, and then mishandle and rob the wayfarers, and how their great, light-skinned women devour flesh, and soak themselves with heady drink.⁴ In the forty-fifth canto, çl. 11 ff., we are told why the women of the Gāndhāras, Madras, and Bāhikas are so evil. These tribes or peoples robbed and outraged a good and chaste woman, and she uttered the curse that for this their women would be loose, and they would not be able to be freed from this dreadful evil. Therefore, too, among them it is not the sons,