Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.413

v1.c5.413

¹ With this ordeal of chastity imposed on the man before marriage cp. Hartland, *Prim. Paternity*, ii, 80–82 ; 90–91 (the last case, however, reminds us rather of the Finnish custom, where the youth and maid lie together by night without consummating the sexual union, which is well known as a feat of Christian and other saints and of medieval love). The law literature in marriage demands from the man not only the like love and faithfulness as from the wife, but also unsulliedness before the wedding. Since the various books of rules for the behaviour of the Indian make complete sexual continence a holy duty of the scholar, and he must enter into wedlock at once after this period of life is over, this insistence on chastity is to be really found in them all. But Yājñavalkya, i, 52 ff. also lays it down expressly that: Without ever having spotted his chastity, thus shall he that is discharged by his teacher take home as wife a young woman *beloved* by him, and that has as yet belonged to no man, is healthy, and so on. And Baudhāy., iv, i.ii gives this guiding thread: Let a man betroth his daughter as nagnikā to one that has not broken his vow of chastity. For the Brahma marriage particularly, he demands such an unspotted wooer in i, ii, 20.2. Cp. Manu, iii, 2. It is true that a good deal can happen between the consummation of the marriage and a marriage of this kind with a child-bride, as prescribed by some at least of the legal writings. Cp. too R. Schmidt, *Ind. Erotik*[^1], pp. 632 ff.—Besides the tale from the MBh. there is Mārkaṇḍeyapur., lxi, 5 ff. : A young Brahman obtains a magic salve for the feet by whose help he covers 1,000 yojanas in one day. In the far-off Himālaya the melting snow washes it off him, he cannot get home again, and an Apsaras falls in love with him. He repels her advances in spite of the loveliness of the heavenly fay: "Dear to me is the hearth, and my beloved wife is my divinity dwelling about me (ramyam mamāgṇicaraṇam, devī vistaraṇi priyā 65). He calls on Agni, who sets him home again in an instant of time. And happiness comes, too, for the poor loving woman: a Gandharva named Kali has long been in love with her, but has never been listened to by her. As she now sits there in her disconsolate abandonment, he takes on the shape of the Brahman and dwells long with her in a thousand joys; for she suspects nothing of the trick. During union, however, she has always, at the Gandharva’s bidding, to shut her eyes; for at such times and in his sleep he that is magically changed must appear in his true shape, as indeed is seen from the tale of Amor and Psyche (the mark of an Indian origin?). Cp. Mahāvagga, i, 63;