Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.44

v1.c8.44

day when the sun comes into a new house of the zodiac—these are the Parvan days, O ruler of princes. The man who on these Parvan days partakes of oil, flesh, and woman goes after death to hell, where dung and urine must be his food. . . . Neither outside the vulva, nor in the vulva of another (not human) being, nor using medicines (exciting or strengthening the manly powers), nor in the house of a Brahman, a god, or a Guru, let a man give himself up to love’s pleasures, nor near holy trees (or : village shrines, caitya), nor by cross-roads, nor in places where many roads meet, nor in graveyards, nor in groves, nor in the water, O lord of the earth. Neither on the Parvan days named, nor in either twilight, nor troubled by urine or stool, must the wise man go to the joyful union. Copulation on the Parvan days brings misfortune on men, that by day brings evil (or : sin), that done on the ground has sickness after it, and calamitous is that done in water. Let none ever approach the wedded wife of another, not even in thought, how much less in words. Not even longing (asthibandha) have those who lie with such a woman ; after death such a man goes to hell, and already here his life is shortened. Intercourse with the wedded wife of another is destruction for men, even in both worlds. Mindful of this, let the wise man go to his own wife, when she is in her ṛitu and free from the blemishes already told ; and if she has a longing for love, then even outside the ṛitu.” (Translated after the Bomb. edit. Çaka 1811.) The places and times here set forth, but not exhaustively, have of course become tabu because of their magical danger. A highly instructive parallel to them is offered, for example, by the monstrously intricate rules of behaviour for the Snātaka, which take up so much room in the Gṛihyasūtras, the law books, and the Purāṇas, and form a real store-house for the history of superstition and of mankind.