Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.5

v2.c20.5

“Let the king who is sore pressed by the foe yield up his harem. For why should he have pity for the possessions of his foe?” The wives of him that is conquered fall as a matter of course to the conqueror. Treasures and maidens the famous hero Arjuna brings home with him from his victorious campaign (iii, 80.27). King Virāṭa speaks: “I give well-decked maids, and various possessions, and what the heart yearns after in the fight” (iv, 34.5). Beautiful women as gifts to some man are found time and again in the Epic. Truly we have here in most cases probably slave-girls, as indeed is often expressly stated. But it is always remarkable that withal the bestowal of bondmen as human wares is relatively seldom to be found. There was, indeed, no so precious a thing, with which to bring honour and joy to a man, as enchanting maidens in the bloom of youth; and the men of the priestly caste above all, even the penitents and holy men, know how to value such treasures, and weary not in proclaiming the meritoriousness of this kind of open-handedness. Karṇa shouts out in the battle that to him who shows him Arjuna he will give a hundred cows that will constantly yield a brass pail of milk, a hundred fine villages, as also a chariot harnessed with white, black-maned, she-mules; and if he be not satisfied therewith, then he will give him a golden chariot with six elephants, and also a hundred decked, dark women with a golden breast-ornament round the neck, and skilled in song and the playing of musical instruments (viii, 38.4 ff.). When Drupada marries his daughter to the Pāṇḍavas, he makes over to them along with other wedding-gifts a hundred slave-girls in the first bloom of youth, and dight in handsome clothes, ornaments, and wreaths (i, 198.16); and so, too, Kṛṣṇa sends them on this occasion fair-decked waiting-maids from various places, who have the gifts of beauty, youth, and skill. At the wedding of Abhimanyu to Uttarā, Kṛṣṇa also bestows on the Pāṇḍavas women, jewels, clothing, etc. (iv, 72.26), and on Arjuna, as already mentioned, at his wedding with Subhadrā, a thousand girls to be made use of at drinking and bathing festivals (i, 221.49-50). Dhṛtarāṣṭra wishes to give Kṛṣṇa a hundred lovely slave-girls that have not yet borne children (v, 86.8). As messenger’s fee, Bharata,