Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.97

v1.c8.97

¹ In this last-named passage also the wind carries off the lovely one’s garment, while in chap. 130 the drunken wanton seems to let it fall herself on the bank. To bathe naked is, indeed, not the Indian custom; it is even looked on as a dreadful sin (originally because of the danger of spirits). See note 3, p. 203 of my *Hindu Tales*; MBh., vii, 73.32, 82.9; xiii, 20.1 ff.; 104.51, 67; Kuṭṭanim., 366; Parāsk.-Gṛihyas., ii, 7.6; Āṣva.-Gṛih., iii, 9.6; Ṣāṅkh.-Gṛih., iv, 12.31; Gaut., ix, 61; Baudh., ii, 3, 6.24; Viṣṇu, liv, 23; lxiv, 5; Manu, iv, 45; xi, 202; Yājñav., iii, 291; Mārk.-Pur., xxxiv, 34; Agnipur., 155.22; Bhāgavatapur., x, 22 (here the shepherdesses are bathing naked, Kṛiṣṇa carries off their clothes and says in ẓl. 19 that as they [here indeed as dhṛitavratā] have jumped unclad into the water, they have mocked the gods). Yet even the pious, chaste wife of Cyavana bathes naked (iii, 123.1), and wholly unclothed bathing women are also often found elsewhere, but especially those of the band of heavenly fays, who in this, too, show the way for their sister wantons on earth. See, for instance, further xii, 333.17 f., 28-30, and in my version of Kshemendra’s Samayamātṛikā, p. xviii. Bathing-clothes (in the house) are called snānaẓāṭī in xiii, 20.1 ff. Also sleeping naked is forbidden (e.g. Manu, iv, 75; Gaut., ix, 60; Viṣṇu, lxx, 3; of course here, too, the fear of magical harm is the real basis). On the other hand it is well known that people in Germany, even, down to Luther’s time slept without any clothing whatever, and even later, than that time this custom is widespread. See Stratz, *Die Frauenkleidung*, etc.³, p. 19 ff.; Max Bauer, *Das Geschlechtsleben i. d. deutsch. Vergangenheit²*, p. 40.