[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915) › v1.c7.78.3 # Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.78.3 Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.78.3 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c7.78.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c7.78.3) then she is clean, but must furthermore give food to Brahmans, and bestow a pair of oxen. According to 20, however, she is absolved through the Cāndrāyaṇa vow. Vasisṭha, xxviii, 1 ff. even declares: The woman even through a lover becomes no more unclean than water through urine and dung, than fire through rubbish it destroys; no matter how bad she may be, or what adventures she may have experienced, let her husband wait till she gets her courses; through these she then becomes spotless again. Before this, as a maid, she has already belonged to Soma, Gandharva, and the fire god, to them that hallow, and cannot after that be polluted by the fact of going from hand to hand—a conception to be discussed in another connection. According to Parāçara, x, 20, woman is like the earth, and can never become wholly unclean. Women, water, and pearls are never spoiled, as we have already been told. Cp. Muir, \*Metrical Translations\*, p. 277 f. Her mouth, that is, her kiss, is always clean, happen what may (Manu, v, 130; Yājñav., i, 187; Viṣṇu, xxiii, 49; etc.), and she herself during the pleasures of love (Vasisṭha, xxviii, 8; Baudh., i, 5, 9.2). Parāçara, viii, 34, declares that a woman, a child, and an old man are never unclean. Çrī, the goddess of happiness, abides, indeed, in the body of wedded and unwedded women (Viṣṇu, xcix, 8 ff.). A marriageable woman who is not actually having her period is the godlike draught of immortality (Vasisṭha, v, 1). - [Previous: v1.c7.78.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c7.78.2) - [Next: v1.c7.78.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c7.78.4) - [Up: v1.c7.78](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c7.78) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c7.78.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c7.78.3) · Pramāṇa