Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.1

v2.c11.1

IN the artificial poetry, and the text-books of poetry and those of love, as oftentimes elsewhere, the hetæra is sung of as queen in the land of love. In spite of her unmistakable importance for Indian eroticism of the Epic world, however, it would be wrong to give her such a place here, too. She is there simply an article of necessity. And if Indian literature along with those fairly numerous songs of praise for the “circulating beauties” is filled with the most splendid love stories and descriptions of the passion of sex—the glowingly sensual and the sweetly tender—the Epic in particular yields a very great number of pleasing flowers of this same kind. And these flowers have also a charm which is at least somewhat rare, in that they do not wither and die on some wild heath, but go on blooming in the garden of wedlock, and in it first reveal the full depths of their glowing colours, and their innermost, strongest perfumes. Who does not know Damayantī and Sāvitrī! And Kālidāsa’s Çakuntalā, however much she has won under the loving care of this favoured one of the god, comes originally likewise from the primeval forest of the Mahābhārata. Further examples of the mighty love of woman will be discussed in the chapter on the Wife. A long list of gods, holy men, and kings who loved their wives, and led a life of joy with them is found in v, 197.8 ff. For the Epic, too, the union between husband and wife is a picture of the tenderest human union (e.g. xii, 319.10). See, too, especially xii, 301.37-39 (the separation between man and wife is one of the most dreadful things).