Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.109

v2.c11.109

(as bride) of a maiden did not the ‘stick’ (daṇḍa, the justice that punishes) protect” (xii, 15.37). But the daṇḍa, according to the much-preached Indian view, indeed brings about all moral order whatever in the world; and on the other hand the men in Old India were just the same as men throughout the ages. It is so, too, that King Dhṛtarāṣṭra must naturally be judged. He has a most excellent wife, Gāndhārī, but also from a Vaiçyā woman a son Yuyutsu. His descendant Janamejaya asks Dvaipāyana, the relater of the Mahābhārata: “Why did he hurt her by unfaithfulness?” The answer goes: “Since the belly of the (pregnant) Gāndhārī waxed and pained for so long a time, a Vaiçyā served him, and from her was the son born” (i, 115.4, 5, 41, 42). On the other hand, the note of wonder in Janamejaya’s question might well be looked on as illuminating. Even holy men and penitents are no spoil-sports there, but we see them even as brothel-keepers of a kind, or rather, as the hosts presiding over free tables of love in most magnificent style. When Bharata went forth to fetch back the banished Rāma, he came with his mighty army also to the hermitage of the Ṛishi Bharadvāja. This Ṛishi by his miraculous powers entertained the whole crowd of warriors in a way that was a real dissipation of the senses: from out of Indra’s paradise he called down the whole host of the Apsarases, and from other heavens other divine women. Twenty thousand of these wondrous beauties were sent by Brahma, twenty thousand by Kubera, twenty thousand by Indra; even the creepers in the forest did the yogi turn into delightful women. Seven or eight of these charming examples of ravishing womanhood gave each warrior, mostly married (cp. Rām., 33, 82.25 and 26), their services for the bath, and offered him heady drink—spirits and spiced liqueur (maireya),¹ whereof there were whole ponds