Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.6

Language: English

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among other things, gives Hanumant, who brings him the news of Rāma’s home-coming, sixteen well conducted, ear-ring-decked girls to wife, golden-hued women with lovely noses and thighs, with moon-sweet faces, favoured with every kind of ornament, and with birth from noble families (Rām., vi, 125.43 ff.). Also beautiful women or girls are brought as tribute to the rulers ; so to Yudhishṭhira a hundred thousand slave-girls wearing cotton garb, dark, slender, long-haired, decked with gold (ii, 51.8, 9 ; cp. 52.11, 29) ; at his horse-sacrifice, among the treasures brought him by the other rulers are women, too (xiv, 85.18) ; and on his side he treats the rulers with the like delicate attention (89.32). So, too, on other sacrificial occasions they always make up a part of the more or less rich flood of treasures poured out by the holder of the sacrifice. Yudhishṭhira at his kingly sacrifice bestowed hundreds of thousands of young beauties (ii, 33.52), and Çaçabindu a huge number at his horse-sacrifice (vii, 65.6)—on the priests and Brahmans, of course. Lovely women are always being mentioned as the dakshiṇā, or sacrificial fee. King Bhagīratha so gives thousands and thousands of gold-decked maidens, each standing on a chariot drawn by four horses (xii, 29.65 f. = vii, 60.1, 2). Cp. xii, 29.32, 133; vii, 57.5-7; etc.

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Thus, too, lovely maidens, splendid women, and slave-girls are particularly advised as gifts to the Brahmans at the çrāddha or festivals of the dead, and are bestowed even by the hundred thousand (xv, 14.4 ; 39.20 ; xvii, 1.14 ; xviii, 6.12-13). It is, however, to the Brahmans that such sweet things must in general be dealt out most plentifully, and the king that does not do so is an accursed ruler (rājakali, xii, 12.30 f.). King Sagara makes over to the Brahmans a palace all of gold, filled with lotus-eyed women and with beds (xii, 29.133). King Vainya gives a thousand lovely slave-girls to Atri, who has sung his praises (iii, 185.34). So the holy Cyavana lets women be bestowed on him (xiii, 63.39 ff.). They are the natural gift for Brahmans (iii, 315.2, 6). Cp. iii, 233.43 ; iv, 18.21 ; xiii, 102.11 ; 103.10-12 ; etc. Even a young widow is made over to the pious Çabara ; he keeps her as his wife (xii, 168.33 ; 171.5 ; 173.16 ff.). A penance is given in xiii, 136.6-7, for when a Brahman has let a woman be bestowed on himself: he is to murmur a prayer, and hold bare iron in his hand.¹ Judging by the context, however, a woman is meant whom he has received from a bestower who is unclean for him. Whoever shows his piety through open-handedness of this kind is naturally magnificently rewarded with lavish joys in heaven (with Apsarases, etc.). So e.g. xiii, 145.2 ff. And the man must make the woman helpful in every way to his own profit *here on earth*.

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Where he himself is concerned, let him without hesitation sacrifice daughter and wife, like everything else; this is often advised in the Mahābh., too, a teaching with which on the other hand, we find, of course, associated its opposite, often and powerfully glorified in maxim and tale. From the accounts we have had set before us we have seen over and over again how a princess is put by her father into the arms of any Brahman that comes, though, it is true, he is very holy, because the father is afraid of the Brahman’s curse, and so on. This must have seemed the more natural in the case of Sukanyā: The Brahman Cyavana, mortifying himself strictly, kept in one place like a tree-stump. The ants built a hill around him, and completely covered him. Then Sukanyā, the only daughter of King Çaryāti, came that way; together with her girl-friends she went wandering this way and that in play. With wanton hand she broke off the boughs from the trees, laden with glorious flowers. She went off from her play-fellows, and came to the spot where the holy man was doing penance. When he saw the wonderfully fair, magnificently decked young girl, he was filled with joy, and spoke unto her. But she did not hear his weakened voice, and saw in the ant-hill only his glowing eyes, which looked like two fire-flies. Full of curiosity, she thrust a thorn into these things she could not understand.

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The already very hot-tempered chastener of his senses took his revenge by bringing a stoppage of urine and of the bowels on the king’s army. In vain the ruler tried in his need to find out who had injured the old penitent; it was on him he threw the responsibility for the mysterious disaster. When the good daughter saw her father thus troubled, she told him of what had befallen her. At once Çaryāti hastened to the