Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.74

v1.c7.74

But sexual intercourse with the still unclean woman is strictly forbidden. To have connection with a woman during the monthly flow is reckoned among the dreadful crimes set forth in Arjuna’s formula of self-cursing (xii, 73.42). To visit a rajasvalā (menstruating woman) is one of the seven things whereby a man forfeits his happiness or long life (xiii, 104.150; xvi, 8. 5, 6), and Brahmans who thus fall appear as sinners (pāpakarmin) in xii, 165.26. Cp. e.g. also xiii, 157.9 ff. The Apsarases by Brahma’s order had to take on themselves a fourth part of the murder of a Brahman, which weighed so heavily on Indra. They besought the father of the worlds to think out some means to free them from it. He answered : “ He that has connection with menstruating women, on to him will it (the Brahman-murder) immediately be transferred. Let your souls’ torment forsake you!” (xii, 282.43 ff.). He that goes to a woman that must not be visited (agamyā) shall, as a penance, for six months wear a wet garment and sleep on ashes (xii, 35.35). The agamyā are of very different kinds, but among them is the rajasvalā.¹ Cp. vii, 73.38 ff.; Manu, xi, 171-179. The mere presence of the woman with such a stain is noxious. What she looks at the gods will not take in sacrifice (xiii, 127.13). She must not be in the neighbourhood of the ancestral offering (xiii, 92.15; K, xiii, 238.18), otherwise the forefathers will be unappeased even for thirteen years (xiii, 127.13, 14). For the Brahman only that food is clean on which the eyes of a menstruating woman have not fallen (xiii, 104.40 and Nil.). Food thus spoiled is the very portion of the demons (xiii, 23.4). What the rajasvalā has prepared must not be enjoyed (xiii, 104.90 and comment.). It is even forbidden to speak with her (xiii, 104.53).² See also iii, 221.27 ; MBh. K., xiv, 116.19 f. ; 109.22 ; 112.46 ; xiii, 161.118; Negelein, *Traumschlüssel der Jagaddeva*, p. 375.