Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c9.7

v1.c9.7

happy, pleasure-fraught women of the houses of joy (veçastriyaḥ), whose glance and speech glide so easily and sweetly along" (v, 30.38). Indeed, the heroes in their camps have no need to feel themselves alone: on both sides, besides other objects of a luxurious life, they have taken with them plenty of these most necessary supplies. When they march out to the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the midst of the army of the Pāṇḍavas is Yudhishṭhira, as also çakaṭāpaṇaveçaç ca yānayugaṃ ca sarvaçaḥ "carts, traders' goods, and pavilions, and the chariots and draught-animals in a body" (v, 151.57-58; cp. 196.26). These chariots and draught-animals are certainly for the hetæræ also, perhaps for them first of all, for in the Epic the better sort of women, particularly the noblewomen and the Kshattriyas, usually drive in yāna.¹ When the camp has been pitched on the battlefield, these sections take their place in the baggage-train in the rear. The enemy force under Duryodhana is accompanied by craftsmen, professional singers, spies, and gaṇikā (women of pleasure, v, 195.18, 19); and in çloka 12 we are further told expressly: "But Duryodhana had the encampment made like another embellished Hāstinapura." In the Rāmāyaṇa (ii, 36) Daçaratha gives orders for a splendid army to be fitted out for his son Rāma, and there says (çl. 3) : “ Women that live by their beauty, those skilled in words, and rich merchants shall adorn the well drawn up troops of the prince.” Even when the Pāṇḍavas with Draupadī and other women, and the burghers that wish to go with them set out in deepest grief to make sorrowful visit to their mother, who has withdrawn into the penitential forest, and their other kinsfolk there dwelling, Yudhishṭhira gives orders not only that the very splendid royal household shall go with them as a necessary retinue, but also that the “ chariots, traders’ goods, and brothels ” shall also be taken (xv, 22.21). These womenfolk were indeed an indispensable part of any expedition. Therefore the rulers took them with them when they went hunting, or took their diversion in the country, not to speak of the excursions to the pleasure-gardens. Thus Duryodhana goes hunting with his brothers and friends, and to brand the cattle in the herdsmen’s stations away in the forest. It is a splendid setting out for the green depths, which is very excellently described : the wives of the Kshattriyas go with them in thousands, burghers along with their wives, then singers, too, and skilled huntsmen in crowds ; and traders and the girls of joy have their regular place (iii, 239.22 ff.). Princes that find their delight in horses, elephants, and harlots are evidently not an unusual thing (Rām., ii, 100.50). As so often in other literature, the strumpet is not only the camp’s ornament, but the ornament too of civic life, that lovely-coloured, scented flower that the city puts in its hair for all to see, when a festival or some other joyful event is being celebrated.¹ King Virāṭa