Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.74

v2.c19.74

Men, it is true, have at all times and in all lands given their approval to a saying that is often heard, but expressed in somewhat varying forms (i, 82.16; viii, 69.33, 62; xii, 34.25; 165.30; cp. iii, 209.3-4; xiii, 23.60), and which declares that this is a lesser sin, and does not harm, indeed, is neither a lie nor wrong-doing at all—an untruth where women are concerned, or during (or rather for) the pleasures of love, at the wedding, in jest, in personal danger to life, and when all one’s property is to be taken away (or where destruction threatens all one’s kinsfolk, or where the highest advantage of a Brahman is at stake, or where that of the teacher is at stake, or in general, to save another’s life).¹ The finer feelings, however, even in such cases shrunk from an injury to truth. King Çibi Auçinara says in a solemn affirmation with magical power: “As truly as I have never uttered an untruth towards children or women, nor in jest, nor in attacks and fights,² nor in my own distress, nor when disaster came on me—so truly shalt thou raise thyself into the air” (v, 122.9).³ And according to xii, 23.64 the deceiver of women must go to hell. Nay, he that hates women is a very low fellow, as, too, is he who behaves ill, when an arrangement is made for the joys of love (v, 43.19; 45.4).¹ And one must yield (“give glory in heaven through his Rājasūya sacrifice, and the open-handedness he there showed towards the Brahmans (like xii, 20.14), but it coincides with the so lofty version of the legend still current to-day in India, as it is given by Rāmakṛṣṇa in his *Life in an Indian Village*, p. 164 ff. Here Hariścandra, in spite of the more than human sorrow that thereby comes on him, acts unwaveringly after his maxim: “It is written that to kill a thousand cows is as sinful as to kill one child; to kill a thousand children is as sinful as taking the life of a weak and helpless woman; and to kill a thousand women is as heinous as the crime of slaying a Brahmin; but to tell a lie is worse than killing a thousand Brahmins” (p. 173). Cp. also my Daçakum., p. 75, note, and for the tale itself there discussed, Chavannes, “Fables et contes de l’Inde” (*Actes du XIV. Congr. intern. des Orientalistes*), No. xxi = *Cinq cents contes*, etc., No. cxvii; ZDMG, 46, p. 605 f.; Rosen, *Tuti-Nameh*, p. 248 ff.; *Decameron*, x, 5; Fr. v. d. Leyen, *Indische Märchen*, p. 123-4. On the other hand we find in MBh., xiii, 23.60 that one may lie only on behalf of a person of standing (the teacher? gurvartham), and to save oneself; but that falsehood otherwise leads to hell. Further concessions are made in xii, 109.17-20, where he that for the sake of the truth does not lie in the cases there given is even called a beggar of virtue or worshipper of the letter, and a low fellow. Kṛṣṇa the cunning one even teaches that one may lie without scruple for the sake of one’s own life, and that untruth is older than truth (vii, 190.47), which is in utter contradiction to other Indian sayings and the glorious Jātaka, No. 422 (Chavannes, *Cinq cents contes*, No. 490); while what is told immediately after of Yudhishṭhira’s chariot (MBh., vii, 190.56) makes a parallel to that Jātaka. The same hero and god further sets forth that truth even thrusts a man into hell, if it hurts others, and supports this by a tale of robbers (viii, 69.46 ff.). And in this he does not stand alone in India. Cp. further the discussions in xii, 109; 110.11. To be sly with women is even a noble thing according to a saying of Cāṇakya (Kressler, *Stimmen ind. Lebensklugheit*, p. 177). Moreover in vii, 190.47 the rendering is possible, though not very likely, as follows: Better than the truth is (in this case) untrue speech.