Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.24

v1.c8.24

It is well known also that in the more formal poetry of India and in the doctrinal books various refinements play a great part in the ordinary love embrace. Of these the Epic refers to one only : in the description of the horses wandering about in a battle we find as follows : "Trampled by the hoofs of these steeds, the earth shone in many colours like a woman that is marked with scratches this way and that by the nails (of the lover)" (ix, 9.13). To heighten the powers of love² flesh has from times of old been recommended, and the Indians of the Epic, above all the Kshattriyas, are great, nay enthusiastic, meat-eaters. So even that pattern of virtue, Yudhishṭhira, acknowledges in xiii, 115 that he prizes flesh above everything, and would now learn the good and the evil of flesh-eating from the dying Bhīshma. And Bhīshma grants, too, that there is nothing better than flesh, and that among other things it has many advantages for those who are given up with all their