Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.26

v1.c8.26

the Old Indian literature in great abundance. See Rich. Schmidt, *Indische Erotik*, 842-857; Garuḍapur., 182.2; 184.13; 192.20-23; 202.25-28; Bṛihatsaṃh., 76; Agnipur., 302.15-16; Chavannes, *Cinq cents contes*, ii, 205; iii, 235; etc. It is to be noted that onions, garlic, and beans play a part in this. Because of their magical nature onions, leeks, and garlic are foods strictly forbidden in the law literature (Āpast., i, 5, 17.26; Manu, v, 19; Yājñav., i, 176; Vishṇu, li, 3), and the well-known prohibition of beans would seem, seeing this effect of the anti-Pythagorean field-fruit, easy to understand. As I know from one who has lived long in India, one hears there in our days as the explanation of the onion tabu its too great likeness to flesh. But it is the well-known erotic, magical, and religious importance of the onion plants that seems to be the main reason here. Onions and garlic are found as aphrodisiacs e.g. in Samayamātṛikā, ii, 26. Garlic is among the Ainu the favourite food of the gods (*Anthropos*, v, 766); onions and leeks were talismans among the Classical peoples (Schurtz, *Urgesch. d. Kult.*, 599); and to-day among the South Slavs the garlic is "a protection against witchcraft and haunting" (Krauss, *Sitte u. Brauch*, 398; cp. 545; *Slav. Volksforschungen*, pp. 37, 66, 95, 148, 250). The fire of love, too, in Slav belief is made hotter by the eating of garlic (Krauss, *Sitte*, etc., 240 f.). Cp. further R. Andree, *Ethnol. Parallel.* (1878), i, 41-43; Th. Zachariae, *Kleine Schriften*, 358; K. E. Franzos, *Vom Don zur Donau* (1878), i, 211; ii, 8; 80; also MBh. K, xii, 141.91 f.; xiii, 91.38 f. That among the old Hindus, too, the onion was prized as a food, anyhow by many, seems to be shown by the tale of the onion-thief, which has wandered into the West and is known there in many places: he was caught, and was given the choice of paying 100 rupees, getting 100 blows with a stick, or eating 100 onions; he chose at first, of course, the onions, but then, with streaming eyes and a face drawn in torment, the cudgelling, and under the pain of the first stroke quickly chose the money fine. See Hertel, *Studien z. vergl. Literaturgesch.*, Bd. 5, p. 129 ff., and especially Zachariae, ibid., Bd. 6, p. 356 ff.