Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c17.45

v2.c17.45

her limbs were annointed, her hair was decked with mandāra-flowers, with heaven’s flowers was Rambhā adorned—a festival of heaven.¹ The eye and the heart were ravished by her most intimate parts, swelling plumply, adorned with a girdle—that most splendid gift on the altar of love’s pleasure. With her moist beauty-marks, laid on (forehead and cheeks) with the juice of flowers from the six seasons of the year,² she shone, like another goddess of happiness and beauty, in loveliness, splendour, brightness, and glory. All wrapped she was in a dark garment, like the water-laden cloud, her face like unto the moon, her glorious brows like two bows of the bowman, her thighs like elephant’s trunks, her hands tender as young shoots. Rāvaṇa rose, under the spell of love’s arrows took her by the hand as she walked, and spoke to the shy one, as he smiled: ‘Whither away, thou with the lovely hips? What happiness art thou seeking of thine own accord? For whom is the sun now rising under which he will enjoy thee? Who will take his fill of the lotus-scented sap of thy mouth, tasting like nectar? To whose breast will these swelling, shining, close-set breasts of thine, like unto golden goblets, grant their touch? Who will now mount thy broad secret parts, like unto a golden wheel, and decked with a gold band, and which are embodied heaven?’ Cp., too, the description of Rāvaṇa’s harem in v, 9, 10.30 ff.³