Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c9.26.1

v1.c9.26.1

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.