Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.1

v1.c6.1

A LOFTY view of marriage meets us, too, in connection with the wedding ceremony in very many places in the Old Indian marriage ritual. In the Gṛihyasūtras or precepts for the religious side of domestic life there are found, besides much old-inherited superstition, as an ardently sought-for goal, two things particularly: first, the blessing of children,¹ especially a wealth of stout sons; secondly, cordial relations between husband and wife, rooted in mutual love. Starting with the choice of a bride, that girl, according to a fine verse, often cited, but perhaps seldom followed—stifled, too, among other rules—she shall be chosen towards whom the man's soul feels drawn in joyful inclination, and beside this nothing else must weigh. At the wedding itself there is a whole array of ceremonies and formulas for bringing about a true bond between the hearts; and Kāma, the god of love, is called upon in the wedding ritual, too. With children and grandchildren playing round them, and with these filled with gladness, the couple hopes to live a hundred autumns, in a tender union of souls. This is the ideal handed down from Vedic times, only that in actual life, and also through later growths, it is often darkened.² Here let mention only be made of those exquisite verses of the Ṛgveda (x, 85.24), with which the bride is addressed: “I loose thee from the shackles of Varuṇa (the warden of the moral law in the world) by which the kindly Savitar has held thee bound (up to now to thy father’s family). Into the womb of the Ṛita,¹ into the world of good works, I set thee, together with thy husband.” Descriptions of the wedding as such an important event in the life of the heroic couple are often given, too, in the literary epic poetry, most beautifully perhaps in Kālidāsa’s Raghuvamça, canto 7. The references, however, in the popular Epic are somewhat scanty.