Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.67

v2.c20.67

ALTHOUGH in the Old Indian Epic, as everywhere in the world, there may be the widest differences of opinion as to the worth and the nature of woman, on one thing, anyhow, we find an absolute agreement throughout the world, and in the view held by the two mighty poems: the Power of Woman. War and peace depend on her. What the Rāmāyaṇa hinges on is the rape of Sītā; the adventures and battles of the poem all turn in the end about her. In the same way we are told in the Mahābh. that the great war broke out mainly on account of Draupadī and the wrong done to her (e.g. ii, 81.13 ff.; v, 78.17; ix, 5.17-21).¹ At her very birth a voice "without a body" proclaims from the fiery altar: "Because of her great danger will arise for the children of Kuru" (i, 167.48, 49). It is true that the roots of that dire quarrel lay far deeper, as the poem shows in so many places; and reference also might be made especially to v, 31.12 ff., where Yudhiṣṭhira, at least, is ready even to forget the insult done to his wife, if only his share of the kingdom is given him. But woman for the Indian, too, is looked on as the usual source of enmity, and of the worst, as has been already pointed out; and according to xii, 139.42 hate arises on earth from the following five: woman, court pomp, words, rivalry, affront.² Woman also goads on to the fight and to courage through her mere presence. The man can never let her see him playing a small part, even at the cost of folly and destruction. So i, 170.68; iii, 11.55; 59.8; 249.6, 7; iv, 35.22; Rām., iv, 14.18, 19.¹ The company of women is vīru pāna for the man, heady drink before fight and danger (iv, 11.38). Any man, even the most ordinary, praises and puffs himself up in the presence of women (xii, 284.27). But as a peace-maker, too, who parts the fighters and makes them ready for reconciliation, she wields her power over men (xiv, 78.22 ff. ; 84. 19 ff.), just as she does as a go-between who softens the angry man, and prevents the fight; for her very presence disarms the strong sex (Rām., iv, 33.28 ff., especially 33.36, 37).