[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915) › v2.c17 # Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c17: XVI. Woman in Misfortune and in Sorrow Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c17 - **Language:** English ## Contents - [v2.c17.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.13) — 3 parts ### XVI. Woman in Misfortune and in Sorrow ### [v2.c17.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.1) As on the widow, so the Epic, often too, bestows beautiful and heartfelt words on the woman in sorrow, and eloquently paints the misery of her that is filled with suffering. Only one or two of these many passages will be mentioned. Bitter sorrow is laid on Draupadī when Arjuna must go off for a long time, and she calls down on him the favour of all beings and gods (iii, 37.24 ff.). Deeply moving is Kuntī’s farewell to her sons and daughter-in-law. Through Yudhishṭhira’s foolishness they have lost all, and must wander into misery for thirteen years. In burning sorrow Draupadī clasps her woman-friends, loud cries of woe are heard in the women’s house. Kuntī can hardly speak for sorrow, and says to Draupadī : “ To thee, my child, I need give no counsel ; thou good and perfect one, thou art an ornament to thy father’s house, and thy husband’s, and no sorrow can befall faithful wives. Walk thou paths of happiness, strengthened by the thought of me.” She sees her sons standing there, who lower their faces for shame, are surrounded by gloating foes and weeping friends, and have been robbed of all their ornaments, and their good garments ; and she bewails the weary lot that lies before the banished in the wilds of the forest, and the injustice of the fate that groundlessly persecutes such glorious, such pious men, and she calls Pāṇḍu and Mādrī blessed, in that they are no longer left on earth to experience these awful things. After the last embrace they go forth, Draupadī in her only, dirty garment ; and the mother senseless with sorrow is led into her house by the arm of a loving kinsman (ii, 79). Cp. e.g. v, 90. ### [v2.c17.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.2) How can the descriptive powers of the poet, indeed, find scope in the crowded deaths of the great song of the bloody national struggle between the Kauravas and the Pāṇḍavas ! The most dreadful scenes come before us there on the field after the battle ; terrible there is the sight of the dead heroes ; ### [v2.c17.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.3) gruesome the ways of the beasts devouring the dead bodies; heart-rending the grief and the tender love that breaks forth from wife and mother. Vast pictures of terror in which whole hosts appear, and pictures where individual grief vents itself to the full are set before us. A whole book of the Mahābhārata, the Strīparvan, “the section of the women,” is mainly given up to this theme. “Women can only seldom act with you, but to suffer with you they are always there.” And elsewhere, too, in the course of the narrative the poem dilates on such episodes. We may mention above all the dreadful torment of Gāndhārī, to whom Vyāsa grants supernatural powers of sight, and who now looks out over the whole battlefield, and describes it (xi, 16 ff.); then Subhadrā’s and Uttarā’s lament for Abhimanyu, cut off in tender years (vii, 78; xi, 20; xiv, 61.24 ff.); lastly the descriptions in iii, 172.21–25; 173.61–64 (these two passages are particularly impressive); xi, 10.7 ff.; 16.48, 55; 17.30; 29.68 f.; xv, 15.35 ff.; xvi, 7.15 ff. To dwell on details would take us too far. And much that is conventional often slips in, too. On the other hand, this utterance is worthy of remark: “The sorrow to which men give themselves up all too much in their heart, arouses burning grief in the forbears that have gone before” (xiv, 2.2).¹ ### [v2.c17.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.4) ¹ This reminds us of the beautiful verses from Kālidāsa’s Rāghuvaṃça which are to be found in the poem of Aja and Indumatī, one of the very finest in Oriental literature, and which are spoken by the Guru to Aja bewailing his dead, deeply beloved wife:— ### [v2.c17.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.5) Now bestow on the sorrow for thy wife an end. And grant her the grace of the death-gift; For the hot tears that are shed by a loved one, They do scorch the dead, if they for ever flow. ### [v2.c17.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.6) Cp. Nitivākyāmrita, 103.7–8. This idea is perhaps best known to us from Chamisso’s poem, where the dead child comes to the weeping mother, and amid other things reminds her as follows:— ### [v2.c17.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.7) I feel thy tears flow To me without a stop; My little shift and linen, They are therewith so wet. ### [v2.c17.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.8) So, too, in Hoffmann von Fallersleben “the dead child” utters the prayer :— ### [v2.c17.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.9) O mother dear, do stop ! Why weepest thou ever ? The tears come through my grave, My clothes do not get dry. ### [v2.c17.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.10) And so in Otto Haendler’s “Totenhemdchen” :— ### [v2.c17.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.11) Ah, mother dear, now weepest thou, And in the grave I have no rest; It all is flooded o’er with tears, And my shroud grows never dry. ### [v2.c17.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.12) (In the collection of poems \*Herbst\*.) ### [v2.c17.13.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.13.1) Cp. Weinhold, \*Die deutschen Frauen\*, i, 242; Lüders, “Die Jātakas u. d. Epik,” ZDMG, 58, p. 706 f.; Ralston, \*Songs of the Russian People\*, p. 316; Fr. S. Krauss, \*Slav. Folkforsch.\*, p. 113; F. v. d. Leyen, “Entstehung d. Märchens,” \*Herrigs Archiv\*, Bd. 114, p. 12, and the references there; “Den heiligen Petrus u. d. trauernde Mutter” in the splendid \*Sagen u. Märchen d. Südslawen\* of Fr. S. Krauss, 1884, Bd. ii, 307 ff.; \*Zschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk.\*, Bd. 3, p. 151; Caland, \*Toten- u. Bestattungsgebr.\*, p. 74. Often found in India is the belief best expressed in Yājñavalkya, iii, 11 (= Garuḍapur., Pretakalpa, 4.80b-81a; xv, 58): “Since the poor dead one has to drink the tears shed by his kinsfolk together with the mucus, we must not weep; we must, so far as we can, carry out the works that fall to our duty.” By this are meant, anyhow in the first place, the death rites that are helpful to the welfare of the dead one. But a further thought that finds expression in the burial-songs of the Veda—those that are still alive belong to life with its business and its joy—may also be found here. The same saying is found again, e.g. in Garuḍapurāṇasārod., xi, 4, only that here the last pāda is altered to say that all grieving is useless after all, a view stressed in India countless times on such occasions. Weeping for those snatched away is over and over again forbidden in the law writings, especially at the celebration of the death rites. ### [v2.c17.13.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.13.2) Whoever in spite of this gives way to this weakness must cleanse himself by bathing. Viṣṇu, xxii, 61 f.; Parāçara, xii, 28. The basis here again is a superstition directed towards the precious self: tears along with seed, sweat, nail-cuttings, etc., belong to the “unclean”, that is, magically baneful products of the human body, which leave one accessible to the evil powers. Manu, v, 135; Viṣṇu, xxii, 81; xxiii, 1. They are calamitous (açiva MBh., iii, 28.18), and an evil omen (Rāvaṇavaha, xi, 124; xv, 43), a conception also found in Germanic lands and among the In the Rāmāyaṇa it is naturally above all the luckless heroine Sītā herself in whose mouth the poet puts affectingly beautiful words of grief. Worthy of especial mention, perhaps, is her sorrow, when Rāma has at length come to set her free, and she, as the result of a magical trick played on her, believes that Rāma is dead, and has to conclude that he has been murdered in his sleep. “Why dost thou not look at me, O king? Why dost thou not answer me, whom thou, the childishly youthful one, didst win as a childishly youthful wife, as a life-comrade? Think of what thou didst promise, when thou didst clasp my hand: ‘Now will I live my life with thee,’ and take me away, who am stricken by sorrow. Up, Rāvaṇa! Kill me, too, swiftly, the wife together with the husband; ### [v2.c17.13.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.13.3) by this win for thyself the highest virtuous merit, and for me the greatest happiness.” And her saying may here be given: “It is said, if the husband dies first, then it comes about that the wife has no worth¹: and it is before me who lead a good life that thou art gone hence, who didst walk the path of excellence” (Rām., vi, 32.9). It is worthy of remark that she so often thinks of her mother-in-law: “I pity neither Rāma nor Lakshmaṇa, the great chariot-fighter, nor myself so much as my poor mother-in-law. For she ponders ever: When Mohammedans, the Mandæans, the old Greeks and Romans, and elsewhere, and a conception which probably is the first root of the custom of wrapping or covering the face when weeping, which, indeed, is also done in the Epic (ix, 63.68 f.; xi, 15.34 f.; etc.). Sorrow itself (çoka) is magical uncleanness (açaunca), but joy and an uplifted soul are magically salutary (çaunca) (MBh., K, vii, 71.20). Food onto which a tear has fallen is nourishment for the ghostly beings (ix, 43.26 f.; Manu, iii, 230). And so on. As a counterpart the fine Buddhist saying may here be quoted: “What is united must divide; we are indeed pilgrims. Mourn not for that which is vanished; love all that is still here” (Jātaka, Bd. iii, 95). ### [v2.c17.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.14) ¹ As is well known the widow still has to hear this to-day among the Indians, as also among many other peoples and tribes. The natural reading of the words of the text would be: “The wife’s first death, it is said, is the incapacity of the husband; thou, who didst live gloriously art gone hence before me, who, too, lead a good life.” This meaning, however, does not fit in well, and close constructions are not seldom found in the two Epics. ### [v2.c17.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.15) WOMAN IN MISFORTUNE ### [v2.c17.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.16) after the fulfilment of their vow shall I once more see Sītā and Lakshmaṇa and Rāma? But I believe that Kauçalyā’s heart will spring asunder, when she, that has but one son, learns that he has perished in the fight. For, weeping, she will call to mind the birth and the childhood and the youthful years, the good deeds, and the beauty of the lofty-minded one. When she has made the death-offerings for her slain son, hopeless, robbed of her senses, she will assuredly go into the fire or into the water” (see Rām., vi, 32, 48 ; 92.44-46). ### [v2.c17.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.17) Among the finest passages in the Rāmāyaṇa is perhaps the extract where Rāma tells Sītā that he is going off into the forest for fourteen years. He wishes to take leave of her, and gives her counsel as to her behaviour during his long absence. But with angered love she cries out: “What art thou saying there? The father and the mother, the brother and the son, each has his own destiny: the wife’s destiny in this world and the other is the husband only. If thou goest into the forest, I shall walk before thee, and trample down thorns and sharp grasses before thy feet. As in my father’s house, I shall live along with thee in the forest, and shall think of nothing in the three worlds but of my duty towards thee. How fair will it be in the forest together with thee! I have long been yearning for its mountains, lakes, and lotus-ponds. With thee so will I live a hundred thousand years in utmost joy, and I shall not mark their flight. Thou alone art my love, to thee alone does my heart cling; sundered from thee, I am resolved to die. Take me with thee; I shall be unto thee no burden.” Rāma unfolds before her all the horrors, hardships, and torments of life in the forest. But she answers: “The wild beasts will run off when they but see thee. I have long known of the forest life from the tales of a nun that came on a visit to my mother. I am burning with longing to go off to the penitential settlement, and to serve thee, the hero. Through my love for thee I shall be freed from sin, following my husband, for he is the highest godhead; to him belongs the wife in death also. Take me, her that is truly devoted to thee, deeply sorrowing, a faithful wife, take me with thee into the forest. If thou do not, then shall I seek refuge in poison, in fire, or in water.” Bathing the earth with her tears, she sinks to the ground; anger comes upon her, and Rāma must soothe her. She beseeches him once more: “Go not into the forest without me! The pains of penance, the forest wilds, or heaven—all but with thee! I shall not weary, if I walk behind thee. The sharp grasses and thorns on the way will be to me as soft cotton, the dust stirred up by the stormy wind as precious sandal-powder. When I am lying then on the forest turf, even a bed spread with handsomest rugs cannot be more blissful. Reach me the smallest root or fruit which thou hast brought me thyself, and it will be sweet to me as the food of the gods. I shall no longer remember father, mother, or home. Where thou art, there is heaven; without thee it is hell. If I am forsaken by thee, O thou my treasure, then it is better I die. Not a moment can I bear this sorrow, how much less for fourteen years.” Loud and piteously she cries out, and twines her arms fast round her beloved. Then he embraces her, utters consoling, tender words, and tells her she can go with him: “At the price of thy sorrow, O queen, I would not buy heaven itself. It was only that I did not know thou wast so firmly resolved. Follow me and be my life-companion in the fulfilling of duty. A fair deed hast thou done, and worthy of my house and of thine. Make thyself ready for the journey. Now were heaven itself nothing to me without thee.” And filled with joy Sītā bestows her ornaments, her clothing, all the beautiful and loved things she possesses on servants and the needy, and goes off with Rāma into the forest (Rām., ii, 26.8–30).¹ ### [v2.c17.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.18) ¹ With Sītā’s words cp. especially those of the “Nut-browne Maide” in the celebrated English ballad of about 1500. ### [v2.c17.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.19) Very pleasing there, too, are chapters v, 15–43, which tell of Sītā held captive by Rāvaṇa, her ill-treatment by the monsters, her heroic endurance of all sufferings, her proud rejection of the enamoured prince of Laṅkā, her conversation with Hanumant, Rāma’s envoy, and of her unwavering love for her husband. The poet here has poured forth a whole wealth of poetry of Indian hue, without, however, reaching that effect on our feelings which belongs to the simple loftiness found in the section just discussed of the second Book. The Hindu may think otherwise. Hanumant finds the captive in the glorious aṣoka-grove of Rāvaṇa. On her, indeed, ### [v2.c17.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.20) WOMAN IN MISFORTUNE ### [v2.c17.21](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.21) all the splendour is lost : she is sunk in a sea of sorrow in the midst of the loathsome man-eating monsters. In the night comes the ruler of this hostile world, surrounded by his bands of wives, and the splendour of his court. She is not completely dressed. “When the princess of Videha saw Rāvaṇa, the prince of the Rākshasas, she trembled like a banana-tree in the wind. With the thighs did the great-eyed lovely one cover her belly, and with the arms her breasts, and crouched down on the bare earth. To the tiger among kings, to Rāma, she was hastening on the chariot of her wishes harnessed to her thoughts. With one long braid of hair she stood out easily, like the earth when the rainy time is over stands out with a dark belt of forest.” Rāvaṇa in eloquent words offers her all his splendour, the position of chief wife, and his glowing love ; she is not to let her precious youth thus go by in misery. What does she want then with the strengthless penitent Rāma, who after all is dead and gone ? But she lays grass between herself and the polluting stranger, and upbraids him for his unseemly words. Great misfortune, she tells him, comes on all that lust after the wives of others. Rāma will come, she says, and destroy Laṅkā, slay them that carried her off, and set her free. Before him will Rāvaṇa as little be able to stand his ground, as the dog before the tiger. But he threatens her : “I give thee another two months, then either thou comest onto my bed, or my cooks will cut thee up into pieces for my breakfast.” The divine and Gandharva maidens that have been carried off by the woman-lover hearten Sītā by gestures with lips and eyes, and now she flings angry, confident words at him. He goes off, filled with rage, and bids the giantesses make her compliant by friendly means or by chastisement. The Rākshasī women now beset her ; bathing her broad breasts with tears, quivering like a gazelle lost from the herd, or torn by wolves, but firm and strong, she proclaims her will to be faithful to her husband, as Çacī to Indra, as Lopamudrā to Agastya, as Rohiṇī to the moon, as Sāvitrī to Satyavant. “Cut me up, tear me to pieces, make shreds of me, burn me in the glowing fire—I will not come to Rāvaṇa. Why will ye speak so long ?” She cannot understand wherefore Rāma does not come and set her free. Perhaps he does not know where she is. Perhaps his foes have ### [v2.c17.22](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.22) murdered him in his sleep. Or is it that he loves her no longer ? But of a certainty her wish will be fulfilled : “ Rāvaṇa, the evil ruler of the Rākṣasas will be slain, and the island so hard to win will wither away like a widowed woman.” She ends thus : ### [v2.c17.23](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.23) “ My heart, robbed of happiness, with much sorrow Overwhelmed, is of a truth unyielding staunch, That it splinters not in a thousand pieces, Like some mountain-ridge struck by a thunderbolt.” ### [v2.c17.24](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.24) Hanumant, who, up till now hidden in a tree, has been a witness to all, discovers himself to her, and gives news of Rāma, and how he is on his way to rescue her. At first she is filled with fear, will not believe the messenger, and holds him for a phantom shape of Rāvaṇa ; he calms and convinces her, and tells her of Rāma’s sorrow and love. Then she believes, falls into joy beyond words, and sheds tears of bliss. But now she has many questions to put to him : how it is with Rāma and his brother, whether her loved one is not sad, does not torment himself, or whether he has lost his love for her, who for her sake has gone through so much suffering, whether he no longer thinks of her, and has no wish at all to set her free. Hanumant assures her : “ No sleep comes to Rāma, and if he once goes really to sleep, then he wakes up again with the word : ‘ Sītā ! ’ If he sees a fruit or a flower or aught else that delights the heart of women, then he sighs long and says : ‘ Woe is me, Sītā ! ’ ” (cp. ii, 55.26 ff.). She makes answer : “ Nectar mingled with poison are thy words—Rāma thinks of no other, and he is overwhelmed with care.” Hanumant wants to carry her on his back at once to Rāma, and persuades her that he is strong enough. But she finds this to be dangerous for herself and him, and through this Rāma’s honour would suffer ; he must overcome the evil-doer in battle, and bring her home ; this alone, she said, is worthy of him (39.29-30 ; cp. MBh., iii, 150.18 ff.) ; and she will and may touch no man’s body but her husband’s. Over and over again she charges the messenger that Rāma must set her free in a month ; longer she cannot live. As credential she gives him a precious stone that Rāma had bestowed on her, the sight of which has consoled her up till now in her wretchedness, just as though she had seen the beloved giver himself. ### [v2.c17.25](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.25) SĪTĀ is wholly the Indian ideal of a woman : tender and mild, soft and dreamy as moonlight, self-forgetting, filled with love, devotion, sincerity, faithfulness, and yet, where it is a case of defending womanly virtue, nobility of soul, and purity of body, a strong heroine, great above all in long-suffering, but great, too, in her unyielding, daring pride. ### [v2.c17.26](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.26) And what a tender soul and stout heart together is shown, too, by Gāndhārī ! This princess is promised by her kinsfolk to the blind Dhṛtarāṣṭra. She hears of it, and herself ties a cloth about her eyes : “ I will let no dislike towards my husband rise up in me ” (i, 110.9 ff.).¹ A wonderful fineness of feeling and strength of soul is shown by the pearl of all Indian women, Sāvitrī. At her father's bidding she goes forth, filled with shame, to choose herself a husband ; the dreadful fate that lies before her she locks in her heart without a word ; tender and noble, and yet with a hero's strength, she carries everything to a happy ending (iii, 293 ff.). ### [v2.c17.27](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.27) ¹ An ugly knight has a beautiful wife who loves him greatly. He loses an eye in the lists, and now does not wish to go back again to her thus ; she puts out one of her own eyes, too, that he need not be ashamed before her. Hagen's \*Gesamtabenteuer\*, i, 249 ff. ### [v2.c17.28](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.28) The Indian paragon of a woman, whose features have often emerged in the course of our treatment, is summed up also in Mahābh., xiii, 123 : “ To the all-knowing, wise Ṣāṇḍilī, fathoming all truth, the Kaikeyī, Sumanā by name, put this question in the heaven of the gods : ‘ Through what way of life and through what actions hast thou shaken off all sin, and come into the heaven of the gods ? Thou shinest in thine own brightness like a tongue of fire, like the daughter of the ruler of the stars, her whose footprints have left brightness in the sky. Clad in dustless garments, free from weariness, standing in a heavenly chariot, thou shinest, glorious a thousandfold in power. It is not through moderate asceticism, open-handedness, or piety that thou art come into this world. Say unto me the truth.’ Thus put to the question by Sumanā, the sweet-smiling Ṣaṇḍilī calmly spoke these friendly words to her : ‘Not because I had been wrapped in the yellow-red garment, nor because I had worn bast garb, nor because I had walked with bald head, nor because I had had penitent’s tresses did I come unto an existence of the gods. Never did I speak evil and rough words to my husband, nor forgot my duty to him. I was ever watchful and eager in the worship of the gods, the forefathers, and the Brahmans, and treated my mother-in-law and father-in-law well. I uttered not calumny against others, nor did it come into my soul; I stood not where there was no door, nor told long tales.¹ I gave myself up in no wise to unkind laughter of any kind, nor to hurtfulness in deeds, whether secretly or openly. If my husband had been out on business, and now came back home, I put a seat for him, and waited on him attentively. If he did not approve of some food, or did not like a dish, whether it was something to eat or to drink, then I avoided all such. If in the house- ### [v2.c17.29](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.29) ¹ It strikes one as a little strange that Indian literature, which scourges woman’s failings so heavily, does not pillory her talkativeness more. In this the Hindu is perhaps far surpassed by other peoples. Is it that the woman in India gives less ground on this point? Worthy of note, too, because of the chance coincidence, is the explanation here of why no beard grows on women. The Finnish poet of the peasantry, Jaakko Räikkönen, who was also more than ordinarily capable in the affairs of life, in his poem Tyytymättömät (printed in the Wäinölä Collection, p. 229) expresses exactly the same thought as the English verse which Thiselton-Dyer, Folk-Lore of Women, p. 68, brings from the neighbourhood of Salisbury :— ### [v2.c17.30](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.30) Nature, regardless of the babbling race, Planted no beard upon a woman’s face; Not Freddy Keen’s razor, though the very best, Could shave a chin that never is at rest.” ### [v2.c17.31](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.31) Why the woman’s tongue is always wagging is explained by the merry tale of the creation of the dog’s tail, which Hans Sachs has also taken as his theme. Krauss, Sitte u. Brauch, p. 184; Zschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk., Bd. 11, p. 255 f.; Bd. 18, p. 224. ### [v2.c17.32](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.32) THE IDEAL WOMAN ### [v2.c17.33](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.33) hold any duties had piled themselves up,¹ then I rose early and had everything carried out, or did it myself. When my husband went away on any business, then I practised many luck-bringing things with the utmost care. When my husband was away, I gave up black eye-salve, orpiment, bathing, wreaths, ointments for the body, and ornaments. I never awoke my husband, when he was quietly sleeping, even if there was business calling²; in this my heart grew joyful. I never wearied my husband with household matters; I always kept that secret which should be hidden, and the house was fair and clean. If a woman thus keeps the path of virtue carefully before her eyes, she is raised high in the world of heaven, as Arundhatī among women.’”³ The same teaching is found in xiii, 146.33 ff. : The woman’s law and virtue, which are laid on her before the fire, and which make of her a sahadharmacārī, “the man’s life-comrade in the fulfilling of the holy duties,” are among other things : a friendly mind, friendly speech, a friendly eye, to think of none but the husband, to look on his face as on the son’s. “The woman that shows her husband a bright and friendly countenance, when he addresses her with harsh words or gives her angry looks, she is a faithful wife. The woman who waits on her poor, suffering, sorrowful, way-worn husband as on a son, is one gifted with virtue. The woman who, filled with deep heedfulness, busily astir, and skilled, with the blessing of sons, is dear to her husband, has her life in her husband, is one gifted with virtue.” Further, she must rise early, see to the service of the holy fire, make the flower-gifts to the gods, make the house clean, spread the cow-dung, give food to Brahmans, the weak, the helpless, the forlorn, the poor, carry out vows of mortification, and so forth. “This is holiness, this is asceticism, this is everlasting heaven, when a woman sees her highest good in her husband, is devoted to her husband with a religious zeal, and is good and chaste. For the husband is the woman’s god, the husband is her kinsman, the husband is her refuge, the husband’s regard is her heaven.” 1 ### [v2.c17.34](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.34) ¹ Or: come to a standstill (samānita). ### [v2.c17.35](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.35) ² Āntareshv api kāryeshu. Perhaps rather: “when matters of business referring to his very near neighbourhood (or: touching him very near) came.” Cp. Ābhyantara in my Kauṭilya. ### [v2.c17.36](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.36) ³ The name Sumanā first of all, then the language and the matter, lead us to think of a Buddhistic origin for this legend. Cp. v, 113; x, 54.6 ff. ### [v2.c17.37](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.37) ¹ Cp. e.g. Viṣṇu, xxv, Solomon’s Proverbs, 31.10 ff. ### [v2.c17.38](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.38) Beauty of soul and of body go hand in hand; where the one is, there is the other, too: Yatrākṛitis tatra guṇā iti loke pi gīyate, says Hemacandra in Pariṣiṣṭap., ii, 233 (cp. Bṛihatsaṃh., 70.23; Garuḍapur., 65.121; Agnipur., 244.6); and in the Uttararāmacaritam (iii, 21) we find the exclamation: Bhidyate vā sadr̥ittam īdr̥içasya nirmāṇasya! (cp. my Daçakumārac., p. 301, where many more illustrations from popular sayings, poetry, and even the philosophical literature of the world could be given). Here we will make only a few particular remarks as to the Indian ideal of womanly beauty, which is fairly generally known. Much is to be gathered already from the descriptions of the various heroines of whom we have already spoken. Draupadī has black curling hair, long eyes like the leaf of the autumn lotus, a scent like the autumn lotus; her face is like the lotus-flower, like the jasmine-flower, when it is covered with sweat; slender is her waist, her hair is long, her mouth is red. She is neither too tall nor too short; she has beautiful hips; she is not thin, not too red, and not too hairy (ii, 65.33 ff.; cp. 67.157 ff.). At the sacrifice she comes forth from the middle of the altar as a wondrous-lovely maid: dark, with black and long eyes, red, high-arched nails, beautiful brows, lovely swelling breasts, and so forth; a scent as of the blue lotus is wafted from her a kroça’s distance (i, 167.44 ff.; cp. 168.6; 183.7-10).² She is of course without compare on earth for beauty, like a maiden of the gods, like a wonderful apparition; whoever sees her folds his hands reverently before his forehead; and more of the same kind. Even as she goes along as a poor chambermaid wearing dirty clothes, men and women run up to where she is seen. Queen Sudeshṇā sees her from her palace, and, wondering greatly, describes her ### [v2.c17.39](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.39) ² This far-wafted wondrous scent of Draupadī, already known to us from Satyavatī, is often referred to (so, e.g. i, 197.36; 183.10). ### [v2.c17.40](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.40) beauty in these words among others: “Her ankles do not stand out (but are imbedded in the flesh, a thing which in the Epic is often mentioned of the fair), and her thighs are firm and hard. Three things in her are deep (voice, understanding, and navel), six high-arched (nose, eyes, ears, nails, breasts, the joint of the neck), five red (the palms of the hands, and soles of the feet, the corners of the eyes, the tongue, the nails) ; she speaks unclearly as the swan, her brows and eyes are round-arched, red as the bimba-fruit are her lips, her neck is like shell, her veins are hidden, her face is like the full moon, and so on. Glorious she is as a mare from Kashmir.” Still more glowingly does Sudeshṇā express herself in K.: “For the man thou lookest on there is no more weakness, no more pain, no more weariness, no more discomfiture, no sorrow, and no torment. Sickness and old age, hunger and thirst, for him are done with to whom thou givest thyself in love. Were such a one even dead, and didst thou clasp him with thy lovely arms, then would he come back again to life (iv, 14.61 ff.).” Even the women gaze only at her; the trees seem to stand bowing before her; no man can see her without being held by love (iv, 9). So that it is no wonder if Kicaka says to her: “Who in the whole world must not fall under the sway of love, when he beholds the glorious moon of thy countenance, endowed with peerless splendour, along with the moonbeams of the smile in thine eyes and lashes,¹ and decked with heaven’s beams, ravishing by its heavenly sweetness? Thy two so glorious breasts, fit for a string of pearls, these well-shaped, splendid, plump, rounded breasts, set close to one another with no gap between, like unto lotus-buds, O thou with the lovely brows, thou with the sweet smile, goad me like the love god’s own goads. So soon as I see that waist of thine, sweetly ringed by folds, bent by the breast’s weight, and within the compass of the fingers, O thou slim one, and thy lovely secret parts, rising like a river-island, I am carried away by a love-sickness beyond cure. Quench thou, O lovely-hipped, the glowing fire of my love with the rain of self-surrender, and the cloud of union in delight ” (iv, 14.18 ff.). ### [v2.c17.41](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.41) ¹ Sounds somewhat strange. Is perhaps īkṣaṇalakṣmaṇām “having the eyes as moon-spots”, one of the many Prakrit forms in the Epic, to be read? The text means literally: “in its smile (through its smile) like unto moonshine.” A somewhat smoother reading would be smitam. In the following half-śloka vṛtam instead of vṛttam is probably right, though “round, with heavenly beams” would also do. ### [v2.c17.42](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.42) An inventory or list of woman’s charms like that just touched on, is given in v, 116.2 ff. Here the fair one is vaulted in six places, that is to say, according to the commentary, at the back of the hands, the top of the feet, the breasts ; or : at the breasts, the buttocks, and the eyes ¹ ; she has seven things fine and delicate : skin, hair, fingers, toes, and the joints of fingers and toes ; three things deep : voice, character (sattva), navel ; five things red : palm of the hand, corner of the eye, palate, tongue, lips.² Then, too, she has like all goodly women other special bodily marks as well betokening good luck. When all are combined, it shows that she will bear many children, even a world-ruler. With words like those of Kicaka, Rāvaṇa speaks to Sītā : “ Of the right size, pointed, smooth, and white are thy teeth ; thine eyes are wide and great, unblemished, and with red corners and black pupils ; thy secret parts are spread wide and firmly swell ; thy thighs are as elephant’s trunks ; thy two breasts have a fair, firm fullness, and are round, close-set to one another, bold, firm-swelling, with lifted nipples, graceful, smooth, and like unto wine-palm fruits ” (Ram., iii, 46.18 ff. ; cp. his words to the state assembly in vi, 12.12 ff.). Still more eloquent does this woman-worshipper, and the poet himself become, when he sees the Apsaras Rambhā on her way by night to the tryst (Rām., vii, 26.14 ff.) : “ Just at this time, Rāvaṇa saw the most splendid of all Apsarases, Rambhā with the full-moon face, decked with heavenly adornment, he saw her going along through the midst of the army. With heaven’s sandal-wood ### [v2.c17.43](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.43) ¹ Nil. gives further a third possibility ; but this must be ruled out, for the woman’s belly must for Indians be slim, not high-arched. ### [v2.c17.44](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.44) ² As to “ catalogues ” of womanly beauty cp., say, Agnipur., 244 ; much better Garuḍapur., 65 ; R. Schmidt in WZKM, Bd. 23, p. 183 ff. ; Ind. Erotik, 614–632 ; Zschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk., Bd. 18, p. 436 ; Max Bauer, Das Geschlechtsleben i. d. deutsch. Vergangenheit, pp. 305–315 ; here also especially Brantôme, Œuvr. compl., éd. du Panthéon lit., ii, 301 ff. ### [v2.c17.45](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.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 ### [v2.c17.46](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.46) ¹ Or: made ready for a festival of heaven. ### [v2.c17.47](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.47) ² On these viçeṣhaka see my note in Daçakum., p. 239. ### [v2.c17.48](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.48) ³ The nose which we treat so scurvily, especially in poetry, among the Hindus and their poets comes better into its own. The lovely nose of women is here often spoken of, and the high-bridged nose is looked on as an attraction in the woman (unnasā, tuṅganasā). In men a big organ of smell is a great distinction. In the MBh. Yudhishṭhira often parades his huge, long, hanging, handsome nose. So in i, 188.22; iii, 270.7; iv, 71.13; xv, 25.5. Cārudatta, the ideal man in the Mṛcchakaṭikā, has a very high-arched nose (ed. Stenzler, p. 144, l. 21). Bāṇa in his Harshacarita says in praise of Skandagupta’s nose that it was as long as the pedigree of his king (transl. by Cowell and Thomas, p. 191). The big nose with the tip turned down is the mark of the hero and of the king (Mārk.-Pur., viii, 196). The importance of the bold organ of smell as a measure of capability in love (Krauss, Die Anmut d. weibl. Körpers, p. 230; Storfer, Marias jungfräuliche ### [v2.c17.49](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.49) As already suggested, the figure, build, and beauty of woman have a great importance for her destiny, quite apart from conquests over the hearts of men. Çrī or Lakshmī is at the same time the goddess of beauty and also of happiness. Therefore in her wretchedness Sītā says : “ The body-marks as a result of which the unlucky women are doomed to widowhood, them I do not see on myself. My hair is fine, smooth, and black ; my brows do not run together¹; my legs are ### [v2.c17.50](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.50) ¹ That in a woman eye-brows which meet bring ill-luck is a universally spread belief. Thiselton-Dyer, The Folklore of Women, Chicago, 1906, p. 59, cp. 218. These are the brows which a witch has, the barren woman, the werwolf, the person with the evil eye, and the person who through his demoniac power sends the nightmare, or torments others himself as a nightmare. Crooke, Pop. Rel., ii, p. 263, and the references there; E. H. Meyer, Mythologie d. Germanen, 85; 133; 139. Cp. Th. Zachariae, Kleine Schriften, 361, note 2; 394 below; Andree, Ethnol. Parallel., i, 44; 63; E. Mogk, “Mythologie” in Paul’s Grundriss, i, p. 1022; Krauss, D. Anmut d. weibl. Körpers, 110 (but the Persians and Arabs look on them as a beauty). A man must not wed a maiden whose eye-brows meet. Agnipur., 244.5 f.; Wilson’s Vishnupur., ed. Hall, Bd. iii, p. 105. In both places and in Garuḍapur., 65.116 (corrected from Bṛhatsaṃh., 70.19) a warning is also given against the girl that has dimples in her cheeks when she laughs (Schmidt, Erotik, 627, 628, 629, 631). In the man, however, here also it is otherwise: The peculiar marks of the hero are that he is tall, has a nose like a parrot’s beak, straight-looking eyes overshadowed by brows that run together, and a disposition that is easily aroused, and is inclined to anger and strife. Agnipur., ccxxxvi, 43 (Dutt, p. 845). So too among the Buddhists such brows show great distinction, and a brilliant future. See Schiefner, Bull. der St. Petersb. Ak., Bd. 23, cols. 24, 33; Bd. 24, col. 449; Bd. 20, col. 383; Divyāvadāna, ed. Cowell and Neil, pp. 2, 58, 525, and elsewhere; Chavannes, Cinq cents contes, ii, 389. ### [v2.c17.51](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.51) Mutterschaft, p. 68, n. 2) does not anyhow enter here. But in Agnipur. 236.43 f., it probably is among the marks of the hero in love and in war. The Aryan settlers in India in all probability were especially distinguished as noble from the aboriginal population of India by this characteristic also. A flat nose on the other hand is a mark of ugliness (Zachariae, Zeitschr. d. Ver. f. Volksk., Bd. 22, p. 132). ### [v2.c17.52](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.52) In Vishnupur., Bd. iii, p. 105 also the warning is given, when marrying to avoid a maiden with teeth that stand wide apart. Cp. ### [v2.c17.53](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.53) rounded and not hairy; my teeth are close-set; my temples, eyes, hands, feet, ankles, and thighs are well-proportioned, and have a fitting fulness. My fingers have gradually rounded nails, they are smooth and well-proportioned. My breasts show no gap between, swell up plumply, and have the nipples set deep; my navel is well sunk and (at the edges) raised up; my side and my breast are hard and well-filled. My colour is like the precious stone,¹ and the hairs on my body are soft. I stand firm on my twelve (the ten toes and the two soles). So am I called a woman with lucky bodily shapes" (vi, 48.7 ff.). Cp. K, iv, 20.32 ff. ### [v2.c17.54](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.54) ¹ Maṇi. MBh., vi, 106.61 forms a commentary. There the, as is well known, very dark Kṛiṣhṇa is called maṇiçyāma, "black as the maṇi"; and Nil. says there that maṇi = indranīla (sapphire). See also v, 94.52; xii, 45.14. ### [v2.c17.55](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.55) Garuḍapur., 65.118 f. (from Bṛihats., 70.21). On the lucky meaning of such teeth see Thiselton-Dyer, \*Folklore of Women\*, p. 220. ### [v2.c17.56](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17.56) XVIII ## Linked texts (15) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa.3.37.24) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.ramayana.valmiki.6.32) — Vālmīki, Sanskrit - [Agnipurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.agni.244.6) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Mārkaṇḍeyapurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.markandeya.8.196) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Garuḍapurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.garuda) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Bṛhatsaṃhitā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.samhita.rsi.brhatsamhita) — Varāhamihira, Sanskrit - [Vaiṣṇava Dharmaśāstra](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.dharma.visnu) — Viṣṇu, Sanskrit - [Divyāvadāna](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.avadana.divyavadana) — Sanskrit - [Mṛcchakaṭika](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.plays.prakarana.mrcchakatika) — Śūdraka, Sanskrit - [Harṣacarita](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.historical.harsacarita) — Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Sanskrit - [Raghuvaṃśa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.kavya.mahakavya.rama.raghuvamsa) — Kālidāsa, Sanskrit - [Viṣṇupurāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.purana.visnu) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Pariśiṣṭaparvan](https://indike.org/pramana/in.jaina.post.parisistaparvan.2.233) — Hemacandra, Sanskrit - [Nītivākyāmṛta](https://indike.org/pramana/in.niti.artha.nitivakyamrta) — Somadevasūri, Sanskrit - [Uttararāmacarita](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.plays.rama.uttararamacarita) — Bhavabhūti, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v2.c17) · Pramāṇa