Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c9.21

v1.c9.21

The counterpart to the Old Indian glorification of the gaṇikā is, as is well known, the high esteem in which the hetæræ were held among the Greeks of old; and in the time of the Abbasids also such ladies are said to have held a like position in Baghdad (Schweiger-Lerchenfeld, *Die Frauen d. Orients*, espec. p. 114). They are likewise held in high esteem in Java, in many parts of Africa, and so forth. Günther even delivers himself as follows on p. 82: "Intercourse with the hetæræ raised the man (in Hellas) quite consciously (!) onto a higher level; for it brought out the individual in him who sought out, heedless of the State, that other individual akin to him, who brought him, over and above the sensual, a lofty spiritual pleasure." Such words would have sounded, to the ears of an old Greek, both quite incomprehensible and ridiculous. He looked for the beautiful body, the refinements of love, and entertainment. This the hetæræ offered him. He had, indeed, honour This being the actual importance and value set on the girls of pleasure, it can easily be also understood that the Epic is filled with zeal against them in its didactic parts. A vigorous saying that is found again and again goes : “ As bad as ten slaughter-houses is one oil-miller’s wheel,¹ as bad as ten oil-miller’s wheels is an inn-sign, as bad as ten inn-signs is a harlot, as bad as ten harlots is a king ” (xiii, 125.9). The ruler is then sharply told : “ Drinking-halls and strumpets, as also traders and mimes, and gamblers and others like them—all these are to be held in check as harmful to the kingdom. Where they set their feet fast in the kingdom,² they are an infliction for honest subjects ” (xii, 88.14, 15).³