Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.6.1

v2.c20.6.1

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.