Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c9.26

Language: English

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thieves are to be looked for (*Hindu Tales*, p. 249 f.). A list very like that given there of the places preferred by criminals is found in Manu, ix, 264 ff., and in it, of course, the veça (pleasure-house) has also its place. The same is true of MBh., xii, 140.41-42. Here praveçashu, if it cannot exactly mean brothel (and I do not know of any evidence in support), should anyhow be changed to ca veçeshu. But as the singular panagare here is in any case extraordinarily rare, we must in all probability read : panagareshu veçeshu. Thus, too, the parallel, in great part like-worded, in i, 140.63-65. Over and above the fact that the list in the MBh. is so like the two former, in Indian literature the wine-house and the women's house are separated from one another only by a very well oiled folding-door. Among the "open thieves or tricksters" (prakāçavañcaka, prakāçalokataskara) is the harlot, together with the gamblers and those who use false measures and weights, who demand bribes, who make attacks with violence, and who live by giving information as to lucky times and ceremonies (Nārada, Pariçishta, 2 and 3; Manu, ix, 256 ff.); and Bṛihaspati, xxii, 9, says: Gamesters, prostitutes, and other swindlers must be punished. Cp. Wustmann, "Frauenhäuser u. Freie Frauen in Leipzig im Mittelalter," *Zeitschr. f. Kulturgesch.*, v, p. 473. So the tale comes back then again to the ruinousness of inns, harlots, kings, and so on in Manu, iv, 85 also, and, with some changes, in Yājñav., i, 141.

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From the harlot the Brahman (or the father of a family) must not accept anything, nor eat any of her food. Vasishtha, xiv, 10; li, 14; Manu, iv, 209 (cp. 85, 86); Vishnu, li, 7 (otherwise fast seven days!); Yājñav., i, 161 (cp. 141); Agnipur., 168.3-9 (otherwise atonement by mortification). The man of the priestly caste must, of course, never visit her. If a Brahman goes to an hetæra, then he must carry out a heavy mortification so as to be cleansed. Jahn, Saurapurāṇa, p. 140. Intercourse with her is on a level with sodomy (Parāçara, x, 12; Mahānirvāṇatantra, xl, 43). The slaying of a woman that belongs to all is even free from punishment according to Gautama, xxii, 27. But the law writings also give them a somewhat more humane consideration. Their ornaments, being the tools of their craft, must not be confiscated, even though the rest of their property be taken from them. Nārada, xviii, 10 f. And this "public cheat" must also act honourably. If she has received her hire from a man, and then refuses, she must pay the double as a fine. Yājñav., ii, 292. According to Agnipur., 227.44b-45a, if she has promised herself to a man, and then goes to another, then she must restore to the injured one double the amount he has put down, and furthermore also pay a fine to the royal treasury. Kauṭilya under certain circumstances even condemns her to an eightfold restitution. See 195.8-14.

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If a dispute arises between public women and their lovers, then the head hetæræ and the lovers shall settle it between them. Bṛhaspati (SBE, vol. xxxiii, p. 266). Very instructive information is also to be found in ZDMG (= Zeitschr. d. deutsch. morgenländ. Gesellsch.), Bd. 60, p. 282 f.; and especially in Kauṭilya; see index under "Lustdirne". In it the public "fair lady" comes off far better than in the Dharma writings. As a matter of course, and as is well known, woman and piety go readily hand in hand, and in this even the public kind of both these is no exception. Thus the holy bathing-places (tīrtha) are often known not only as places for all kinds of love-making, but also as places where light women ply their trade; and in the Tantra literature at a Devacakra, one kind of cycle connected with the worship of a god (or Tantric-mystic), the leading part is played, as Çakti or embodiments of the active power of the divinity, by those five well-known kinds of harlots: rājaveçyā (the harlot of rulers), nāgarī (the city harlot), guptaveçyā (the secret harlot, that is, the woman of good family who secretly follows this calling or these joys), devaveçyā (the harlot of the gods, or temple-dancer), and brahmaveçyā, that is, the tīrthagā (the harlot of the bathing-places). See Mahānirvāṇatantra transl. by M. N. Dutt, 1900, p. xxvii f.