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Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c16: XV. The Widow

Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c16

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XV. The Widow

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DREARY, on the other hand, is the lot of the widow in the Epic. First and foremost the husband is the food-giver to the wife (the bhartar of the bhāryā). True, we read in xiii, 167.2 of Yudhiṣṭhira after the great fight: "Then did Pāṇḍu's son, the king, console with rich gifts the women whose hero-husbands, their lords, had been slain"; and in ii, 5.54 it is laid down as the ruler's duty that he shall maintain the wives of the men that have lost their lives or come to misfortune in his service.¹ But even if the ruler should have been true, oftener than may be presumed, to this virtue of the father of the land, it would have been only a relatively small part of the existing widows that were helped by such a prescript, and a grant or pension of this kind. Even where the husband was wealthy he could not at his death leave much to his wife as her personal property. "Three thousand is the most that a man can give his wife in money; and this property given her by her husband she shall enjoy, as is fitting. According to the tradition the woman has the usufruct of the property left behind by her husband. In no wise shall anything of the husband's property be taken away from her" (xiii, 47.23 ff.).² This last ordinance would indeed be a very friendly one, but, of course, can only be meant to hold if there are no sons.³ But man, and

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¹ Cp. Kauṭilya, transl., 384.6-10; addit., 384.32.

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² Cp. Kauṭilya, transl., 244.7 ff.; addit., 244.47.

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³ The woman is often found inheriting her husband's property in spite of many opposed views. The wife inherits the property of the sonless man: Bṛhaspati, xxv, 46-50 (but cp. the partly contradictory provisions, which yet follow immediately thereafter, 53 and 54; they look, indeed, like an interpolation, especially as against 55); Viṣṇu, xvii, 4; Yājñav., ii, 135 f. (= Agnipur., 256.22 f.). Cp. Mahānirvāṇatantra, xii, 23, 27, 28, and the passages quoted in the discussion of the inheritance rights of the maiden, especially the claim of Viṣṇu

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especially woman, does not live on bread alone, but also from sunshine and from love. The widow of Old India, indeed, who was not left childless had something more for which to live, and for which she was assuredly often glad to live on ; and given the beautiful relations of the children to the mother, it must seldom have been that she was without regard and affection in her own house. But from a new marriage she was, anyhow in the upper classes, shut off.¹ Therefore does

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that the mother shall inherit in proportion to her sons’ (or her son’s) share (xviii, 34 f.). According to Nārada, xiii, 12, and Bṛihaspati, xxv, 64 the mother has the same share as a son ; according to Gautama, xxviii, 21 the widow of a sonless man shares his estate with the kinsfolk. Cp. Jolly, *Recht u. Sitte*, espec. 85, 86 ; “Rechtl. Stellung d. Frau bei d. alten Indern,” *Münch. Sitzungsber.*, 1876, p. 452 f., especially, however, the more precise account in Meyer, *Altind. Rechtsschr.*, p. 78 foot-81 ; also Kauṭilya, 243.17-245.18. Mention must be made also of the old wise man Yājñavalkya. When he leaves his house for a Samyāsin’s life, he wishes beforehand, as something calling for no remark, to divide his belongings between his two wives left behind. Bṛihadāraṇyaka-Upanishad, ii, 4.¹. If a man dies, leaving neither wife nor offspring behind him, his property goes to his mother. So Manu, ix, 217; Bṛihaspati, xxv, 63. According to Vishṇu, xvii, 4 ff. only when his father also is dead; and Manu, ix, 185 only names the father and brothers. The sonless widow is by Nārada, xiii, 28-31, left wholly to the mercy of the husband’s kinsfolk.

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¹ That is to say, this is the view which governs both Epics. In the higher castes, at least in the noble and the Brahmanic caste, this was also what was demanded by the higher rule of conduct at the time when the Epic was built up. Besides this it still reflects here and there other and probably older conditions, where in these circles also, or at least among the Kshattriyas, a fresh marriage of the widow or of an outcast woman was the custom. Thus it appears a matter of course for Damayantī to take another husband, when Nala has disappeared (iii, 70 f.). In this case they had been parted only three years in all (iii, 76.37, 51). The course of development here set forth is still going on to-day: so soon as a caste begins to rise in our day, it sees the first token of its rise in the marriage of widows being forbidden. Billington, p. 113 ff.; Crooke, *The North-Western Provinces of India*, 211; Fuller, *Studies*, etc., 162.

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The old law writings, which are, however, meant above all for the twice-born, that is, the three higher castes, likewise give quite another picture than the well-known mournful one. They can tell of quite a number of cases where a fresh marriage of the woman already married is allowed or ordained. If the husband has gone away on a journey, and not come back, then the grass-widow according to Nārada, xii, 98 ff. must first wait—the Brahman woman with children eight years, the childless one four, the Kshattriyā woman with children six years, the childless one three, the Vaiçyā woman blessed with children four, the childless one two; for the Çūdrā woman no time is laid down. Then the woman can marry any other man. On the other hand Vasisṭha, xvii, 78 ff. says emphatically that she must be given only to a member of the family, so long as there is one such. In him the time of waiting is for the Brahman woman five and four years, according as there are children or not, for the Kshattriyā woman five and three, for the Vaiçyā woman four and two, for the Çūdrā woman three years and one. See also MBh., iii, 71.6-7. If there is tidings of the traveller, then the grass-widow must let twice as long an interval go by. Manu, ix, 76 says in general that she must wait eight years if her husband is gone abroad on holy works (dharmakāryārtham), six years, if for the sake of knowledge or renown, and three, if it is on the hunt after pleasure (kāmārtham, as several commentators say, on love adventures). Gautama, xviii, 17 lays down for the second of these cases twelve years; as to the others he says nothing. Furthermore we are taught five cases where the wife may marry without more ado: when the husband is missing (naṣṭa), or dead, or has become an ascetic, or is impotent, or has lost his caste. Nārada, xii, 97; Parāçara, iv, 28; Agnipur., 154.5-6 (= Garuḍapur., 107.29b-30a, and Nārada, xii, 97). Parāçara, indeed, in what follows promises the widow the highest of rewards in the world beyond, if she leads a life of strictest chastity, or even lets herself be burnt with the body—certainly a late interpolation. If a spotless maid (nirdoṣā) has been unwittingly wedded to a man who is afflicted with a lasting or hateful sickness (dīrghakutsitarogārta), misshapen (vyaṅga), out of his mind, fallen from his caste, homeless, persecuted by misery (or: repulsive, durbhaga), or rejected by his kinsfolk, then not only may she, but she must leave him, and choose another. Nārada, xii, 36-37 and 96; cp. 31. So also Mahānirvāṇatantra, xi, 66 emphatically declares: She that has been wedded to one that cannot beget shall be separated and married again. For the field must be given to him that has the seed. Nārada, xii, 19. Cp. espec. Meyer, Kauṭilya, 244.18 ff.; addit. 244.17-21; 254.18 ff., 45 ff.; 254.3-17; addit. 254.3-17; also 296.16-297.4; addit. 296.47; Agnipur., 227.15b-16a. Hence also Yājñav., i, 55 ordains that the bridegroom is to be examined carefully as to his manhood before the wedding (yatnāt parīkṣitaḥ pumstve); and

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Nārada, xii, 8–19 insists on the same thing, and gives highly interesting marks of the man fit for love’s duties, and a still more interesting catalogue of impotent men together with methods for cure in the curable cases (among them the mukhebhaga, and the man that has his powers with other women, but not with his own wife). Cp. Kauṭilya, 305.11 f.; addit., 305.30; 296.16–297.4; addit., 296.47; Agnipur., 227.15b–16a. Nārada, xii, 61 also lays down: If a man lies with the willing wife of a man that has left his spotless (chaṣte, aduṣṭā) wife, or is impotent or consumptive, then that does not constitute adultery. If this passage is taken together with the others in this law work, then according to it it would seem that at least the forsaken wife may marry again. The right to her has evidently been lost altogether by the husband. According to Viṣṇu, v, 163 the man who leaves his wife (patnīm parityajan) shall be punished like a thief. However, nirdoṣam is probably to be supplemented from the preceding Sūtra; thus: “if she is free of worse failings and unchastity.” Āpast., i, 10, 28.19, makes the demand: He who unjustifiably forsakes his wife shall put on an ass’s skin with the hair outwards, and beg in seven houses with the words “Give alms to one that has left his wife”. Thus must he support himself six months long. Cp. Manu, viii, 389. Among the Ghasias in the United Provinces, where as among many other tribes the girl makes the marriage proposal, the wife can leave the husband and of course marry another, if he becomes mad, impotent, blind, or a leper, or if he has to do with other women; while the husband has not the same right against the adulteress. Hartland, *Prim. Paternity*, ii, 40 (on like and still greater privileges of the woman, and the prejudiced position of the man particularly in his relations with the other sex cp. ii, 67, 106, 124–128; 154 f., also 72 ff., and especially 78–82; further ii, 5–7, and in reference to this Welhausen, *Gött. Nachrr.*, 1913, p. 465 ff.). Cp. also W. I. Thomas, *Sex and Society* (1907), p. 73 f.; 79. If the husband has been missing for nine years, the wife in Montenegro (Crnagora) may wed again (Krauss, *Sitte u. Brauch d. Südslawen*, 229 f.). And so for other cases.

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As furthermore the booty belongs to the conqueror (Gautama, x, 20), and the woman is moreover especially called the rightful property of the victor (Manu, xii, 96; cp. Richter, v, 30), it does not astonish us when at least the bird king Kandhara weds the wife of the Rākṣasa Vidyudrūpa, whom he has slain (Mārkaṇḍeyapur., ii, 28 ff.), and when Agnipur., 236.63 also utters the special reminder: The wives of conquered kings do not become the conqueror’s, but he must protect them carefully. But a love affair with a widow brings down punishment, and according to Parāçara, x, 25 a widow who becomes with child by her lover must be banished from the land. Even to-day Duryodhana declare : “I can just as little enjoy the earth whose precious stones are gone, and whose Kshattriya heroes are slain, as can a widowed woman” (ix, 31.45). A remarkable exception is here given us in the wife, who is drawn as very loving and as a pattern, of the ape prince Vālin. At first, when it is suggested to her that she must care for the dead prince’s son, she cries out : “What to me is the son or the kingdom? What to me is my own self? I will follow on the footprints of the slain.” But these are but the words of the first sorrow. She then bewails her widow’s lot : “A woman robbed of her husband may have sons and be rich in money and corn, but a widow she is called by the wise.” Most bitterly she wails by the body, will not let herself be parted or consoled, strives to wrench herself from the arms of those who are taking her away by force, and beseeches Rāma to kill her as well. “I will go to him, for without me he has no joy. Even in heaven without me he walks in sorrow and with a wan countenance, and has no wish to clasp the Apsarases. Think to thyself : ‘She is his own self,’ and so slay me ; it will be no woman-murder. According to the books of doctrine and the Vedas, the wife is one body with the husband; compared with the gift of a wife there is in the view of the wise no other gift in the world.” But Vālin is buried in the most magnificent way, and the new king Sugrīva, brother to the slain man, from whom Vālin has earlier taken away his own wife, makes the widow his wife, and loves her greatly. She seems to be most tenderly attached to her husband’s murderer ; anyhow, she takes on herself a difficult mission for him. Her son, at least, is not

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the celibacy of widows has not yet made its way everywhere. Crooke, *The North-Western Provinces*, 228 f., writes of this part of India : “Recent enquiries show that out of a population of 40,000,000 of Hindu, 9,000,000 or 24 per cent prohibit widow marriage, while 30,000,000 or 76 per cent both permit and even encourage the practice. . . . As a matter of fact, among all but the very highest castes, every young widow finds another mate, and the levirate, or custom by which the younger brother-in-law takes over the widow of his older brother, widely prevails.” Cp. too Chavannes, *Cinq cents contes*, ii, 293 ff. (the wife of a man that has vanished weds again) ; Bulloram Mullick, *Home Life in Bengal*, p. 123.

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pleased, indeed, with the new marriage, but he only blames the uncle, and this because he has taken for himself the wife of his elder brother, her who for him is the same as a mother—a standpoint which shows a nobler, and probably for the Aryan more natural feeling than the view we found in discussing polyandry in the Mahābhārata (Rām., iv, 19.10–25 ; 29.4 ; 31.22 ; 46.9 ; 33.38 ff. ; 55.3, 14).¹ That here also the wife of the dead foe falls as natural booty to the conqueror is on the other hand probably a reflection of the older conditions, and is not to be looked on as a kind of “ apish custom ”.

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¹ Cp. Schmidt, *Liebe u. Ehe in Indien*, p. 358 f. Tārā according to MBh., iii, 280 was first Sugriva’s wife, and was taken by force by Valin.

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Touching is the plaint of the pious dove that has lost her husband in the heart-snaring tale edited by M. Haberlandt in his *Indische Legenden* : “‘ I cannot remember thee ever doing me an unkindness, O beloved, and every widowed woman mourns, even though she have many sons. Pitiable to her kinsfolk is the poor woman that has lost her husband. And I was ever fondled by thee, and honoured because of thy esteem. Amid sweet, tender, fresh-gushing, heart-delighting words I have taken my delight together with thee in the caves of the mountains, and by the waterfalls of the rivers, and on the pleasant tree-tops, and flying through the air I have found sweet joy with thee. Once I had my delight, O beloved ; that is no more. For what the father gives has bounds, so what the brother gives, so what the son gives—what woman then should not worship the giver of what knows no bounds, the husband ? ² There is no stay like the husband ; there is no happiness like the husband. All money and goods the woman leaves behind her, and finds her refuge in her husband. Without thee, my treasure, there is nothing left for me in life. What good wife could live without her husband ?’ After this woman, weighed down by deep sorrow, had thus wailed piteously and long, faithful to her husband, she went into the flaming fire ” (xii, 148.2 ff.). Yudhishṭhira calls out at the side of Duryodhana, who is wounded to death : “ How can I again behold my brothers’ and my sons’ widowed wives, reeling in sorrow, with sorrow overwhelmed? For thee alone, O king, it is well; for thee stands open in heaven a sure abode. We shall come to dreadful sorrow, that is to be called a hell; and the sorely stricken wives of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s sons, and his grandsons’ wives, those widowed, sorrow-harrowed women, will of a surety upbraid us” (ix, 59.29, 30). The dying Duryodhana himself first bewails his sister, that she has lost her husband and brothers (ix, 64.35, 36). Cp. xii, 1.16. The daughter of the Rākṣasa, Kumbhīnasī, has been carried off by the Daitya Madhu, and her kinsman Rāvaṇa sets out in anger to chastise the insolent one. At first he finds only the “sister”, who, however, weepingly beseeches him: “Slay not, I pray, my husband. For for women of good birth there is here on earth no horror like this. Among all horrors widowhood is the greatest stroke of evil” (Rām., vii, 25.42 ff.). Cp. ix, 42.15 f. Therefore, too, Mahābh., i, 158.22 declares: “The highest reward of women is to go, before the husband, to that most glorious abode in heaven for those gifted with sons; thus do they know it, those with the knowledge of the holy law.”

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² This strophe, which is identical with Rām., ii, 39.30, I have already taken from that.

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And yet widow-burning is really foreign to the Epic; the cases which do happen to be found are rare exceptions, and undoubtedly belong, at least in far the greatest part, to later revisions. The Rāmāyaṇa, tells of but one woman, a Brahman, that gives herself to be burnt in the flames along with her dead husband, and this in the regular way of satī (Rām., vii, 17.14). But the seventh book does not belong to the original poem, and this legend seems to be of especially late date. Now the Rāmāyaṇa also would have had opportunity enough for widow-burnings. But the conclusion that, because they are not found in this Epic, it is older than the Mahābh. is quite without justification. That the original form of the Mahābhārata as an Epic is from an earlier time than the original form of the Rāmāyaṇa is for me, at least, beyond any doubt. The whole spirit of the two poems, and many details, point even to a far greater age for the Mahābhārata. But this latter has had to suffer far more from revisions than has the poem of Rāma and Sītā, which from the very beginning was far more Brahmanic than the originally unpriestly, wholly warrior-like

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Mahābhārata poetry. Furthermore, the Mahābh. is also so much longer, and thus offers more room for widow-burnings. Finally, the difference of place between the two must not be left out of account either. Assertions that it is the duty and nature of a good wife to follow her lord in death can be found often enough in both poems, although, as is natural, oftener in the Mahābh., but they yield no proof, since they all might be referred to later revision. In isolated cases, or locally, moreover, such a death by self-sacrifice of the woman undoubtedly happened from early times in Aryan India, too, and the Kshattriyas in particular, the forefathers of the Rājputs, who are endowed with the strongest feeling for private property in regard to their wives, may have known it.¹ Yet even the cases actually told of widow-burning in the Mahābh., where, furthermore, so many husbands meet death, and only very few widows “die afterwards”,¹ do not all show the true satī (suttee). We have spoken of the contest between Pāṇḍu’s two wives, how each wished to let herself be burned with the husband’s body. But of this there is no trace in the account itself. Kuntī’s offer to “follow” her husband is hardly the first outbreak even of womanly overwrought feelings, as, say, in Tārā, Vālin’s wife, but sounds exactly as if all was happening only for the sake of the sad widow’s good appearances. And Mādrī, who is in real earnest, has not the reasons for an Indian satī. She says: “I have not yet enjoyed love to the full. And in the midst of pleasure’s union he went away from love in death.² How might I now cut off his longing in the abode of Yama?” The warrior that falls by the weapon comes into paradise, where with heavenly companions in pleasure he gives himself up to the intoxication of the senses. On this Pāṇḍu, who was killed by the sexual union, has no claim, and therefore must starve in the other world. Yet even if this view should not come into the case, it is natural that Mādrī in this peculiar case, should see herself driven to take her step from the feeling of guilt (i, 125.23 ff.). That in itself this manifestation of wifely faithfulness by Mādrī is looked on as something unusual and peculiar is shown by the words addressed to his slayer by the penitent when he is pairing as a gazelle with his wife, and is so slain by Pāṇḍu: “The loved one with whom thou art lying at the time of thy death will follow after thee out of loving regard, when thou hast reached the city of the king of the dead, whereunto all cross only with reluctance” (i, 118.31, 32).³

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¹ A good example from Rājput history, which in many ways reminds us of the MBh., is given by Tod, *Rājasthan*, ii, 102 ff. The glory of the sati, the meritoriousness of the widow's death, and the way in which she shall burn herself are described, e.g. in Garuḍapurāṇasārod., x, 35-55. On the other hand the Mahānirvāṇatantra most emphatically curses this “wife's faithfulness”: every woman is a picture of the great goddess, and if a woman in her blindness climbs onto the dead lord's pyre, then she goes to hell (x, 79-80). Cp. herewith Zachariae, *Zschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk.*, Bd. 14, p. 204, n. 2. A most excellent essay on Indian widow-burning has been given by this scholar in this same periodical Bd. 14, p. 198 ff.; 302 ff.; 395 ff.; Bd. 15, p. 74 ff. A kind of tale, though probably quite a modern one, of the origin of the custom is given in *Anthropos*, ii, p. 277 ff. The roots of the custom probably lie not only in the idea that the departed one must not go into the other world as a wifeless wretch, but also in the superstitious fear of his vengeance, if this property of his is withheld from him, or even taken over by a successor in marriage. On this fear of ghosts, which send his possessions after the dead man, cp. e.g. Schurtz, *Urgesch. d. Kultur*, 155 ff.; 221, 567; Crooke, *Anthropos*, iv, p. 469 ff.; *Zschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk.*, Bd. 15, p. 232; Andree, *Ethnol. Parallel.*, i, 26-29; *Anthropos*, vii, 659; etc. Worthy of remark here is the explanation of the Mishmi in the border hills of Assam, that they give the dead man his things in the grave not because he needs them, but because they look on it as unseemly to enrich themselves with his property (*Zschr. f. Ethnol.*, v, p. 193).

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¹ So, e.g. the widows of Droṇa, Drupada, and the still so young Abhimanyu go on quietly living (ix, 23.37 ff.; xi, 25.19; 20.23-28), to say nothing of others. ² Less likely: perished through love. ³ Cp. in the treatment of the surata how the wife of the Brahman eaten by Kalmāshapāda follows him in death (i, 182), and what was said there about the self-burning of Mādrī (p. 233).

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The only true case of satī is found in a very recent part, where the four wives of Vāsudeva: Devakī, Bhadrā, Rohiṇī, and Madirā mount onto the pyre with his dead body (xvi, 7.18, 24). On the other hand, Rukmiṇī, the well-beloved, Gāndhārī, Çaibyā, Haimavatī, and Jāmbavatī, five of

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Kṛṣṇa’s wives, burn themselves, not with the soulless body of their lord, but only later on, after a very bad experience. Satyabhāmā and other highly-revered life-comrades of the Crœsus in wives go off, on the other hand, into the forest, and become penitents, just like the wives of Akrūra, whom likewise it is wished to hold back from doing so (xvi, 7.72 ff.).¹ As against this it is related in xviii, 5.25, 26 as follows : The 16,000 women, the wives of Vāsudeva, plunged at the proper time into the Sarasvatī. There they laid aside their bodies, and mounted up to heaven, and they became Apsarases, and went to Vāsudeva. A like anumaraṇa is also described in xv, 33.17 ff. : The miraculously strong Vyāsa makes the mourning wives of the heroes fallen in the battle—all that wish to do so—plunge into the Gaṅgā, and so come into the world of their husbands ; rid of the human body, shining in divine shape, decked with the adornment of heaven, freed from sorrow, and in joyful delight, they unite in the heavens with their beloved lords.

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¹ It is instructive to find that it is only after Pāṇḍu’s death, when Vyāsa so orders her, and tells her what dreadful times are coming that Satyavatī with her widowed daughters-in-law, and therefore as one far stricken in years with these no longer young women, goes off into the penitential wilderness (i, 128, 1-13); and that Kuntī, too, only takes this step with Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī at an advanced age. Yudhishṭhira and Bhima try as best they can to persuade her not to go, all her sons follow her with tears in their eyes, and her daughters-in-law Draupadī and Subhadrā go a stretch of the way with her, weeping and in despair, but she will not let herself be held back, but means by humble service to her “ parents-in-law ” and asceticism to earn her entry into the world of her husband (xvi, 16, 17).

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Already before this rising into heaven through the instrument of magic, Vyāsa bids all who are mourning for their dead, man or woman, to come to the Gaṅgā. Those taking part in the truly poetical spiritualist seance wait on the bank till nightfall. Then the mystagogue plunges into the water and calls up all the dead heroes from their various worlds. Through the divine penitential power of the holy man all those that were slain in the battle now rise up from the river exactly as they were in life, but glorified and surrounded with heavenly adornment and heavenly following, especially the bands of Apsarases, and the whole night long a blissful reunion is celebrated. All grudges of former days are forgotten. Parents and children, brothers and sisters, and other kinsfolk clasp one another. “ United to their fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons, the women felt the utmost joy, and left sorrow behind. After the heroes and their wives had taken their delight for the one night, they bade one another farewell, clasped one another, and each went off again whence he or she had come ” (xv, 31.19 ff.).

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Of real intercourse with the dead husband, and children thus begotten, we are told in a “ tale from days of yore ” (paurāṇī kathā) ¹ : “ There was once a king, renowned under the name of Vyushitāçva, most rich in virtue, a successor to the blood of Pūru. When this man of virtuous soul, the strong armed one, sacrificed, then came thither the gods together with Indra, and the godlike Ṛishis. Indra became drunk with the soma, and the Brahmans from the wages of sacrifice at Vyushitāçva’s sacrifice, the high-minded royal Ṛishi’s. The gods and the Brahman Ṛishis carried out the sacrificial rite at that very place. Hence Vyushitāçva shone upon mortal men as the glowing son shines on all beings at the time when winter is over. This best of princes overcame the kings in the east and the north, in the west and in the south, took them captive, and led them forth with him to the great sacrifice, to the horse-sacrifice, Vyushitāçva the splendid. For this king was gifted with the strength of ten snake spirits . . . A daughter of Kakshīvant was his wife, held by him in high honour, Bhadrā by name, peerless on earth for her beauty. And the two loved one another. So it is told. Wholly overcome through his love for her, he was taken by consumption. In a short while as the result of this he went to his home like the sun. When this ruler of men was dead, his deeply saddened, childless wife broke out in a moaning (so we have heard), Bhadrā, she that was tortured by bitterest sorrow (Hear this, O high herdsman of men) : ‘ Any wife

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¹ Formalized expressions of the old bardic poetry often appear in it, and in other ways also it bears the stamp of an independent and older tale, but one later given a somewhat Brahmanic colouring. It is seen to be also a tale of the origin of the Çalvas and Madras.

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robbed of her husband, O knower of the highest law, that lives without her husband, she does not truly live, the sorrow-burdened one. Death is better for a wife without her husband, O warrior hero. I will go whither thou art; be gracious to me, and lead me thither. Parted from thee, I cannot even live an instant. Show me favour, O king; take me quickly hence. On smooth paths, and on rough I will follow after, O tiger king, that goest but comest not again. Following thee like thy shadow, O king, ever subject to thee, I shall everlastingly find my delight in thy welfare, O tiger among men. Henceforward, O king, pitiable, heart-withered agonies of soul will come upon me, that am without thee, thou lotus-eyed one. It must be that I, a wretched one, have (in an earlier existence) sundered some that were mated; therefore it is that this parting from thee has befallen me. But even if a woman, parted from her husband, live but a moment only, yet this wicked one can hardly be said to live at all, like one that is in hell, O ruler of the earth. I have in a former body torn asunder those that were intimately bound together; hence, O king, has this sorrow taken me in its grasp, springing from my separation from thee, and heaped up in earlier bodies through evil deeds. From now on, O king, I shall lie on a bed of kuça-grass, bathed in sorrow, filled only with the yearning to see thee again. Show thyself to me, O tiger among men, counsel me, who have ever an aching heart within me, wretched and piteously mourning thee, O ruler of men.' As she thus in manifold words kept ever bewailing, and clasped the dead man, the voice of one hidden ¹ spoke :—

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¹ Literally : a hidden voice.

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‘Arise, thou good one, go from here;
I grant thee a favour :
I will beget unto us a group of children
With thee, thou lovely one with smiling lips.

Thou woman with the glory of high hips,
Sleep thou on the moon’s fourteenth night,
Also the eighth, cleansed in the bath,²
On thy bed with me united.’

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² Literally : having bathed after the monthly cleansing.

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Thus addressed, the queen so did, she the faithful wife; exactly as the words did tell her, did Bhadrā, yearning after children. The queen bore three C̣alvas and four Madras as sons by the dead man" (i, 121.7 ff.).¹

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¹ That the dead husband or wife can come back and have sexual intercourse with the surviving wife or husband, and even beget or bear children is a belief found elsewhere, too. Ploss-Bartels, ii, 589 ff.; Kirchhof, *Wendunmuth*, ed. Oesterley, iii, 515 ff.; Jülg, *Die Märchen d. Siddhi-kür*, Leipz., 1866, 9th tale; Crooke, *Pop. Rel.*, etc., i, 118; *Zschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk.*, ii, p. 299 (Herod and the dead Mariamne); viii, p. 335 (South Russian vampire); x, p. 124 (Icelandic); xiv, p. 322 f.; Krauss, *Slav. Volksforsch.*, 130, 135; Elsie Clews Parsons, *The Old-Fashioned Woman*, p. 110 f.; Goethe’s *Braut von Korinth*; Helgi’s return in the Edda; etc. It is here that the many vampire and Leonora tales belong. Much literature will be also found, at several of the places quoted in Krauss, as to the man who cannot part from his lifeless wife (a few Indian examples in J. J. Meyer, *Hindu Tales*, p. 77; see also Chavannes, *Cinq cents contes*, ii, 221 f.). Best known of all is the commerce with the dead woman magically kept from decay after the example of Charlemagne. *Hagen’s Gesamtabenteuer*, ii, p. 631 ff., iii, p. clxii f.; Weinhold, *Die deutschen Frauen i. d. Mittelalter*, ii, p. 8. This view must be particularly kind for Albanian women. There, when a woman after years of widowhood bears a child, we are told: "Her dead husband is a vampire and has visited her by night." *Zeitschr. f. Ethnol.*, "Abhandl." Bd. 26, p. 561. There is an interesting case in the Paramatthadīpanī, iii, p. 144 ff.: A vimānapeta induces the bride whom he has left by death to give a Buddhist begging monk a ball of thread; through this pious deed it becomes possible for her to taste divine pleasures. He fetches her in his heavenly chariot (vimāna); for seven hundred years, which to her seem seven, she is with him. When she leaves him the blooming wife becomes an old woman. By these last features this peculiar Indian Leonora belongs also to other cycles of tales, especially to that immensely extensive one which is best known to us by such tales as Wolfgang Müller’s *Mönch von Heisterbach*, or Irving’s *Rip Van Winkle*, and of which Hartland, *The Science of Fairy Tales*, (under "The Supernatural Lapse of Time in Fairy Land", pp. 166-195) gives a good, though of course highly incomplete survey. [From Melanesia for the case of marriage between a living man and a ghost woman cp. G. C. Wheeler, *Mono-Alu Folklore*, pp. 55-6, 188 (Translator).]

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XVI

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