Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.63

v2.c19.63

¹ These passages, indeed, in the first place, anyhow, are aimed at the horrible practice, not confined, in Old India anyhow, to actors and suchlike, of a man living on his wife’s vice. This crime is equal to killing a Kshattriya, Vaiçya, or Çudra, or a cow, and leads to torture for a world-era in the twenty-one hells, and then to births as a water-beast. Viṣṇusmṛiti, xxxvii, 25; xliii, 26; xliv, 5. One so without honour cannot be a witness. Nārada, i, 183. Food from such as allow their wife to have a lover, or live with him under one roof must not be accepted by the twice-born man. Yājñav., i, 164; Viṣṇu, li, 16; Manu, iv, 216, 217; Gautama, xvii, 18 (cp. with xv, 17); Vasiṣṭha, xiv, 6, 11. Indeed, he that takes money from his wife’s lover, and so shuts his eyes, must pay eightfold as a fine. Kauṭilya, 360.4-6; Yājñav., ii, 301.