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Book No. 75


To first story in the book press: 3518

To last story in the book press: 3531

The Ocean of Story Volume 1

Tawney C.H. (Translator)

The Ocean of Story Volume 1, C. H. Tawney (Translator), 1892

THE OCEAN OF STORY (Volume I)

BEING C. H. TAWNEY’S TRANSLATION OF SOMADEVA’S KATHĀ SARIT SĀGARA (OR ocean of streams of story) NOW EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, FRESH EXPLANATORY NOTES AND TERMINAL ESSAY BY N. M. PENZER, M.A., F.R.G.S., F.G.S. MEMBER OF THE FOLK-LORE SOCIETY; FELLOW OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, ETC. AUTHOR OF “AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR RICHARD FRANCIS BURTON,” ETC.

IN TEN VOLUMES

VOL. I

WITH A FOREWORD BY SIR RICHARD CARNAC TEMPLE, Bart., C.B., C.I.E.

 

THIS EDITION OF THE OCEAN OF STORY 18 DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF CHARLES HENRY TAWNEY M.A., C.I.E. AUTHOR AND SCHOLAR

 

Short Introduction:

The Kathā Sarit Sāgara is the earliest extant short story collection, written by Somadeva around 1070. It's a fine collection of stories, presented in a fine translation, fascinating both simply as a good read and as an artifact: many of these stories have influenced other famous stories and folktales from across the globe.

 

About the Author

CHARLES HENRY TAWNEY 1837-1922

[The following account of the life and labours of Mr Tawney has been prepared chiefly from the obituary notices which appeared in “The Times,” “Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society” and “The Calcutta Review”]

CHARLES HENRY TAWNEY was the son of the Rev. Richard Tawney, vicar of Willoughby, whose wife was a sister of Dr Bernard, of Clifton. From Rugby, which he entered while the great days of Dr Arnold were still a recent memory, he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he greatly distinguished himself. He was Bell University Scholar in 1857, and Davies University Scholar and Scholar of Trinity in the following year. In 1860 he was bracketed Senior Classic and was elected a Fellow of his college.

For the next four years he worked as a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity, but though he had obviously excellent prospects of academical work at home, considerations of health induced him to seek employment in India.

In 1865 he was selected to occupy the Chair of History in the Presidency College, just then vacated by Professor E. Byles Cowell. Mr Tawney filled this Chair with great credit from 1866 to 1872; in the latter year he was appointed Professor of English.

In 1875 he officiated as Principal in the place of Mr James Sutcliffe, and on the latter’s death, in the following year, his position as Principal was confirmed. This office he held from 1876 to 1892, with breaks for short periods, during which he either went home on leave or was called upon to officiate as Director of Public Instruction in the then undivided province of Bengal.

He also held the position of Registrar of the Calcutta University from 1877 to 1881, 1884 to 1885, and again in 1886 and 1889.

He was awarded the C.I.E. in 1888 and retired from the Education service at the end of 1892.

Mr Tawney had a happy familiarity with the literature of his own country, and published in Calcutta (1875) The English People and their Language, translated from the German of Loth. His acquaintance with Elizabethan literature was remarkable, while in Shakespearean learning he had no living rival in India. In this connection it is to be regretted that, except for editing Richard III (1888), he left no record of his great learning in this particular field of knowledge.

There was little scope in Calcutta for the display of Mr Tawney’s knowledge of Latin and Greek, and so almost as soon as he arrived in India he threw himself heart and soul into the mastering of Sanskrit. This he achieved with the greatest credit, as the numerous works which he has left clearly show. His first publications were prose translations of two well-known plays, the Uttara-rāma-carita of Bhavabhūti (1874) and the Mālavikāgnimitra of Kālidāsa (1875). In Two Centuries of Bhartṛhari (1877) he gave a skilful rendering into English verse of two famous collections of ethical and philosophico-religious stanzas. But his magnum opus, to which he devoted some later years of his Indian career, was his translation of Somadeva’s Kathā Sarit Sāgara, which was published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in their Bibliotheca Indica series (two volumes, 1880-1884). Considering the date of the appearance of this great translation it was well annotated by most useful notes drawn from a wide reading in both classical and modern literature. The extreme variety and importance of the work, together with the recent strides made in the study of comparative folklore, religion and anthropology, are the raison d'etre of the present edition.

The same interests which prompted Mr Tawney to produce his magnum opus also led him, during his official life in London, to the study of the rich stores of narrative connected with the Jain doctrine, resulting in his translations of the Kathākoça (Oriental Translation Fund, N.S., ii, 1895) and Merutunga’s Prabandhacintāmaṇi (Bibliotheca Indica, 1899-1901), both works of considerable difficulty and interest. At the same time he was engaged in superintending the preparation and printing of catalogues issued from the India Office Library, the Catalogue of Sanskrit Books by Dr Rost (1897), the Supplement to the Catalogue of European Books (1895), the Catalogue of Sanskrit MSS. by Professor Eggeling, of Persian MSS. by Professor Ethé, of Hindustani books by Professor Blumhardt (1900), and of Hindi, Punjabi, Pushtu and Sindhi books by the same (1902), of the Royal Society’s Collection of Persian and Arabic MSS. by E. D. Ross and E. G. Browne (1902). He was himself joint-author of a catalogue of the Sanskrit MSS. belonging to the last-named collection (1903).

Mr Tawney’s services to Sanskrit scholarship were therefore both varied and extensive.

Apart from Sanskrit and European languages, Mr Tawney knew Hindi, Urdu and Persian.

As an Anglo-Indian he was a worthy successor to men like Jones, Wilson and Colebrook. He genuinely loved India through its learning and literature. The great influence that he had upon his Indian students was amazing. It was due, in a large measure, to his elevated moral character, his impartiality, his independence of judgment and his keen desire to do justice to all who came into contact with him.

In this connection it is interesting to read the opinion of one of his old pupils.

At the unveiling of his portrait at the Presidency College, Calcutta, Professor Ganguli speaks of his wonderfully sympathetic nature, and adds: “What struck me most in my master was his utter indifference to popularity, which, unfortunately, in some cases magnifies the artful, and minimises the genuine. I consider him to be an ideal teacher who combined in himself the best of the East and the best of the West, and I look upon him as a never-failing source of inspiration to me.”

After his retirement from the Education service at the close of 1892 he was made Librarian of the India Office. He held this post till 1903, when he was superannuated.

Mr Tawney married in 1867 a daughter of Charles Fox, M.D., and the union extended over fifty-three years, Mrs Tawney dying in 1920. They had a large family.

In concluding this short account of Mr Tawney’s life, the following lines from his own translation of Bhartṛhari seem especially relevant

“Knowledge is Man’s highest beauty,

Knowledge is his hidden treasure,

Chief of earthly blessings, bringing

Calm contentment, fame and pleasure.”

 

Foreword

I have been asked by Mr Penzer to write a Foreword to the first volume of his great work on the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, but when I observe the research that he has bestowed upon it and read the lists of those whose assistance he has secured, I cannot but feel much diffidence in complying with his request. I can, however, take this opportunity of saying what it has long been in my mind to say about the books and papers that this gigantic collection of Indian folk-tales has from time to time called forth. I am also somewhat encouraged to do this by the attitude of Mr Penzer towards his own important efforts, as it is clear that he does not look on them otherwise than as a continuation of the research that has been already devoted to the collections; for despite the exhaustive nature of his Appendix IV to this volume, his last paragraph – the very last of the whole volume – runs thus:

“More than this it is impossible to say. Much research still remains to be done on this highly important anthropological problem.”

It is in this spirit that I, too, propose to approach the subject of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara – the Ocean of Story – and what I am now about to say points to further research being necessary, a proposition Mr Penzer would, I take it, be the last person to controvert.

Nevertheless, I wish to say at once that Mr Penzer’s notes to the text, short and long, and the four fine appendices on folk-lore to this volume – viz. on Mythical Beings, the Use of Collyrium and Kohl, the Cravings of Pregnant Women motif, and Sacred Prostitution – fulfil to my mind the purpose for which they are written, and must always be a mine into which students can delve with profit. They are a good augury for the value of the information he has in store for scholars in the volumes that are to follow. Anything that I may remark, therefore, which savours of criticism is said only with the object of assisting the research he has so gallantly and so usefully undertaken to promote.

On page 268 Mr Penzer makes a series of remarks to which I would like to draw attention, as they exhibit the spirit in which his researches have been made, and to my mind they show generally the soundness of his observation and conclusions. At any rate I for one can heartily endorse them.

He says, firstly:

“I feel that the fact is often overlooked that the origin of a certain custom [speaking for the moment of sacred prostitution] in one part of the world may not necessarily be the same as that of a similar custom in another part of the world.”

And then he follows up this excellent sentiment by another remark:

“We must also remember that the religion, ethics and philosophy of India have been ever changing, and nothing is more inapplicable than to speak of the ‘changeless East’ in this respect”:

to this I would like to add, “or in any other respect.” Later, on the same page, he says: “Our knowledge of the early Dravidian religion of India before it was ‘taken over’ by the Aryan invaders is so slight that it is impossible to make any definite statement with regard to the origin of any particular custom of ritual or religious observance.” Here, however, it seems to me that the researches of Professor Krishnaswami Aiyangar and others, and of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, the Mythical Society of Bangalore and other such bodies in India, are leading us to a closer knowledge thereof. Let us hope they will enable us to solve the puzzle, which, after all, it is peculiarly the office of the native of India to solve.

With these preliminary remarks let me start upon my own observations on the subject of Mr Penzer’s great work. I judge from the Invocation that Somadeva, the author of the original book, was a Śaiva Brāhman of Kaśmīr. His real name was Soma, deva being a mere suffix to the names of Brāhmans, royalties and the like. Mr Penzer shows that he must have composed his verses about A.D. 1070, or about two hundred and fifty years after Vasugupta introduced into Kaśmīr the Śaiva form of the Hindu religion peculiar to Kaśmīr, which was subsequently spread widely by his pupil Kallaṭa Bhaṭṭa. Later on, but still one hundred years before Somadeva, it was further spread by Bhāskara, and

then in Somadeva’s own time made popular by Abhinava Gupta, the great Śaiva writer, and his pupils Kṣēmarāja and Yōgarāja. The last three, who must have been Somadeva’s contemporaries, were much influenced by the philosophic teaching of another Soma – Somânanda, to give him his full name – who with his pupil Utpalâchārya created the Advaita (Monistic) Śaiva Philosophy, known as the Trika, about two hundred years before Somadeva. Other important Kāśmīrī philosophic writers before Somadeva’s date were Utpāla Vaiṣṇava and Rāma-kaṇṭha. [1] So while Somadeva was composing his distichs for the delectation of Sūryavatī, the Queen of King Ananta of Kaśmīr, at a time when the political situation was “one of discontent, intrigue, bloodshed and despair,” it was also – as has often happened in Eastern history – a time of great religious activity. The religion and its philosophy were Aryan in form, meaning by the term “religion” a doctrine claiming to be revealed, and by “philosophy” a doctrine claiming to be reasoned out.

There is plenty of evidence of the Brahmanic nature of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara. Here is a strong instance. The story of the birth and early days of Vararuchi (p. 11 ff.) is not only Indian but also typically Brahmanical. Inter alia he exhibits his wonderful memory to Kāṇabhūti, the Yakṣa, turned Piśācha, king of the Vindhya wilds, telling the king how his mother had said to some Brāhmans that “this boy will remember by heart everything that he has once heard.” And then he relates that they “recited to me a Prātiśākhya,” a peculiarly difficult and uninviting grammatical treatise, and that he immediately repeated it back to them. The same class of memory is claimed by Guṇāḍhya in his account (p. 75) of how the Kātantra or Kālāpaka grammar was revealed to him by the god Skanda (Kārttikeya). Now, though the claim put forward by Vararuchi is extravagant, the extraordinary accuracy of memory cultivated by the ancient Brāhman and Bardic classes in India still exists, and has been taken advantage of by Sir Aurel Stein and Sir George Grierson in reproducing from word of many mouths the text of the Lallā-vākyāni six centuries after the date of the authoress Lai Dëd with an accuracy which the written word does not possess. Accurate memory is not a monopoly of the Brāhmans and Bards of India, but it is no doubt specifically characteristic of them.

The point of the Brahmanic character of Somadēva’s collection of tales is of importance to the present argument. The author of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara is a Brāhman, and he gives the work a Brahmanic – i.e. an Aryan – form, [2] giving rise, primâ facie, to the assumption that the origin of the tales is to be sought in the land whence the Aryans came, somewhere to the west of India proper. But it is clear that the author purported to make a general collection of tales current in India about a.d. 1000, or rather he claims to have made a selection, as did his contemporary Kāśmīrī Brāhman Kṣemendra in his Bṛhat Kathā Mañjarī out of a much older, but now lost, work, Guṇāḍhya’s Bṛhat Kathā or Great Tale. This general collection contains to my mind certain tales, customs and folk-lore which do not appear to be Aryan in origin. The writer or his original has in fact drawn on popular Indian folk-lore, whether Aryan or non-Aryan, connecting his tales by rather simple literary devices, so that they are all made to run together as parts of one general story.

The Aryan invasions of India were spread over a long period and the progress about the country was very slow. The Aryans came across at least one race, the Dravidians, equal to themselves in mental capacity, and across many others whose minds they could more or less easily dominate. Neither the Dravidians nor the others were of their form of civilisation and traditions, but they all mingled with them in some degree or other, at any rate to the extent of social contact, generally as master and servant. The consequent development was on the recognised lines of evolution as far as the author of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara and his hearers were concerned. That is to say, it was fundamentally Aryan, with accretions from every race with which the Aryans had come in close contact for, say, three thousand years by Somadeva’s time. These races were Dravidians, “Kolarians” or, shall we say, “aborigines,” and people across the Northern and Eastern frontiers – all very different in origin from the Aryans. They all carried their religions, folk-tales and folklore with them, and cannot but have infected the indigenous corresponding nations of the Aryans of India with alien ideas and folk-tales.

Here then it seems that we have a line, as it were, given us for research: whence did the various non-Aryan tales and ideas come? It is not an easy line to follow, as the period is so late and the whole matter by that time already so complicated. Suppose a custom or tale is non-Aryan Indian – i.e. Dravidian or “Kolarian” – or Farther Indian (Mon, Shan, Tibeto-Burman) by origin: by Somadeva’s date it had plenty of time to be assimilated and take on an Aryan form. Suppose it to date back before the Aryan irruption into India: its existence in principle now or at some ancient date in Western Asia or Europe would not prove that it arose either in India or in Europe or Western Asia. Suppose research to show a tale or idea to be of general occurrence in India, Asia, Europe, Africa, and even in America and the Pacific Islands: recent works show so much and so ancient communication all the world over as to make one very careful as to asserting origin. Suppose we find a story in Siam, in Indonesia, in Persia, in Europe, in South Africa, as well as in India: it might well have gone thence out of India or gone through or even round India in either direction. To show how this kind of thing can happen I printed in 1901 [3] a tale told in the Nicobars in Nicobarese form to a European officer who was a Dane by nationality, Mr A. de Roepstorff, which turned out to be a Norse tale he had himself told the people some years before. Wherever, then, a civilisation or a people travels, there go also folk-lore and custom. Take as an example the recent travel westwards in Europe of the Christmas Tree and the Easter Egg. The whole question is very difficult. Even if we trace a tale or an idea to the Jātakas, to the earliest part of the Mahābhārata or the Rāmāyaṇa, to the oldest Purāṇas, to the Brāhmaṇas, to the very Vedas themselves – that does not make it Indian or Aryan in origin.

However, I do not personally feel inclined to despair. Work like that of Mr Penzer will, I feel sure, if continued seriously, go far to solve the principles of the puzzle – to help to unlock the secret of the actual line that the progress of civilisation has taken in the past. I take it that a tale or idea in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara may be found to be by origin:

1. Aryan, with analogies among Asiatic and European Aryan peoples.

2. Semitic, with analogies in Western Asiatic countries and elsewhere among Semitic peoples.

3. Asiatic, with analogies among Mongolian peoples.

4. Non-Aryan Indian with analogies among Dravidian, “Kolarian,” Farther Indian or other Indian peoples.

5. General, with analogies spread widely over the world perhaps from an ascertainable source.

6. A merely literary invention of Indian Aryans, such as the origin of the town name Pāṭaliputra, or of the personal name of Guṇāḍhya, Mālyavān and other celebrities of old. Folk etymology of that kind has never died down in India, as the (Revenue) Settlement Reports of the middle nineteenth century show – e.g. one such Report soberly stated that “the Malee (mālī, gardener) Caste” had an origin in a river-borne boy foundling of Rājpūt descent, taken over by a low-class woman who mothered him; so he afterwards became known as the ma lee (as the Report spelt it) or his “mother took him.” It is a case of the old Indian widely and persistently used effort to raise caste status by an etymological legend. It was used in the earliest European days in India when the Malayālam washermen claimed to Barbosa a Nāyar descent, which an ancestor was said to have forfeited “by a mistake” – and there are signs of it in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara.

I must not unduly spin out the Foreword by examining all the stories and ideas in this volume in the light of the above remarks, and I will therefore confine myself to a few instances where further examination may perhaps be usefully undertaken on such evidence as may be available. I will take first those that seem to point to a non-Aryan origin as the most important for the present purpose.

Chapter VIII commences with a remarkable statement (p. 89):

“In accordance with this request of Guṇāḍhya that heavenly tale consisting of seven stories was told by [King] The Paiśācha Language Kāṇabhūti in his own language, and Guṇāḍhya, for his part, using the same Paiśācha language, threw them into seven hundred thousand couplets in seven years.”

So the claim is that the original of the Bṛhat Kathā, the Great Tale, was composed in the Paiśācha language. From the Great Tale came Kṣemendra’s Bṛhat Kathā Mañjarī and Guṇāḍhya’s Kathā Sarit Sāgara; but the story goes further. Guṇāḍhya’s two pupils, Guṇadēva and Nandi-dēva, took his Kathā Sarit Sāgara to King Sātavāhana (Sālivāhana), who,

“when he heard that Paiśācha language and saw that they had the appearance of Piśāchas... said with a sneer: ‘... the Paiśācha language is barbarous... Away with this Paiśācha tale.”

So Guṇāḍhya burnt 600,000 couplets and reserved only 100,000, on which Kṣemendra and Somadeva eventually worked. King Sātavāhana obtained possession of the 100,000 couplets which formed the Bṛhat Kathā and

“composed the book named Kathāpīṭha [Book I of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara ] in order to show how the tale came first to be known in Paiśācha language.”

Now whether the home of this “Paiśācha language” was in the North-Western Panjāb or in the Vindhyas of Central India, it was not Sanskrit, but something else, and the people speaking it were to the old Indian Aryans a demon race (see Appendix I to this volume, pp. 204 ff.). Are we to understand then from the Kathā Sarit Sāgara itself that the tales it purports to recapitulate were of foreign origin, at any rate in the majority of cases? Some are obviously Aryan, but what of the rest? Presently we shall see that probably neither Guṇāḍhya himself nor Kāṇabhūti, from whom Guṇāḍhya is said to have obtained his tales, were Aryans.

The frequent mention of the gāndharva form of marriage amongst people not only of great position, but held in high personal esteem, seems to be a result of a ruling class pass- Gāndharva ing into a foreign country. There are several Marriage instances in this volume of gāndharva marriage, from which I select the following: –

1. Page 61. – A Nāga prince, Kīrtisena, marries a Brāhman girl, Śrutārthā, clandestinely, and her son is Guṇāḍhya himself, who is “of the Brāhman caste.”

2. Page 83. – Devadatta, a Brāhman, with the intervention of Siva himself, marries Śrī, daughter of King Suśarman of Pratisṭhāna (in the Deccan), secretly by a trick on her father.

3. Page 116. – Śrīdatta, a fighting Mālava Brāhman of Pāṭaliputra, marries secretly Sundarī, daughter of a Sāvara (wild tribe) chief, whom he first deserts and then receives back, having already a princess, Mṛgānkavatī, for wife, married apparently irregularly, whom he again seemingly marries regularly.

It will be observed that Guṇāḍhya, the author of the Bṛhat Kathā, is thus said to be himself by birth a Nāga-Brāhman half-breed. If so, he could imbibe quite as many non-Aryan as Aryan folk-tales and ideas in his childhood. The case may be put even more strongly. It is possible that the story in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara has arisen on the same principle as that of the mālī already mentioned, and goes to cover the fact that Guṇāḍhya was not a Brāhman, nor even an Aryan, and it was inconvenient for the Brāhmans of Somadeva’s date to allow that anyone but one of themselves had originally collected the Great Tale.

But apart from such general inferences, the point of stories like the above appears to be that in the earlier Aryan days in India illicit unions between Aryans and non-Aryans among classes of consequence, which for reasons of policy could not be set aside, were recognised as regular, and that when the girl brought forth a son the marriage of the parents was assumed, the convenient fiction of supernatural Gandharvas as witnesses being brought into play. The gāndharva marriage was undoubtedly recognised, but it was seemingly never considered reputable. Was the custom, however, Aryan or non-Aryan in its origin? The story of the Founding of the City of Pāṭaliputra (Patna) seems to give it a non-Aryan origin (p. 18 jf.). Putraka, a Brāhman prince of Southern Indian descent (the geography is, however, vague), marries “Pāṭalī, the daughter of the king,” secretly, and their intrigue is discovered by a woman appointed (p. 23) “to watch secretly the seraglio at night.” She, finding the prince asleep, “made a mark with red lac upon his garment to facilitate his recognition.” Upon discovery Putraka then flies off magically with Pāṭalī through the air to the banks of the Ganges and founds Pāṭaliputra. A not uncommon method of discovering an intrigue between a man and a maid among the Andamanese is for the elders to paint the man with red or grey matter on a ceremonial pretext and to await the result on the following morning. If the girl shows signs of the paint the pair are formally married. The story in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara infers the existence of some similar custom in ancient India. Was it Aryan or non-Aryan?

On page 5 of this volume Siva is found talking to Pārvatī, his mountain Himālayan bride, of what happened to themselves in a former life, and tells her that because he wore The Necklace of Skulls “a necklace of skulls” he was kept away from her father’s sacrifice. The whole context is also remarkable, as it seems to deal with the rise of Siva as the Supreme out of the early Vedic gods. As I understand the situation, Siva was originally a local Himālayan god, who, with Viṣṇu, gradually became a chief among the whole Hindu pantheon. This would assume that he was a non-Aryan deity who grew into prominence – and he wore a necklace of skulls. Why? Was this a non-Aryan aboriginal notion? Among the Andamanese, who may be taken to be among the most untouched aborigines in existence, it is still the custom to wear skulls of deceased relatives. At page 132 of A. R. Brown’s Andaman Islanders, Plate XVIII, there is a figure of a girl wearing her sister’s skull. Similar figures have been published by E. H. Man and M. V. Portman.

At pages 292 and 293 of his work Brown explains the custom as part of his general Philosophy of Social Values: they are to him

“visible and wearable signs of past dangers overcome through protective action of the Society itself and are therefore a guarantee of similar protection in the future.”

Without in any way endorsing an explanation of savage customs which bids fair to disturb past efforts in that direction, I would suggest that it is worth while making a detailed investigation of the story of Siva and his necklace of skulls, on the ground that we may have here something definitely non-Aryan in Indian hagiology.

This idea is strengthened on considering a passage on page 146. Lohajangha, a Brāhman, plays a trick upon a bawd, but in the course of it he says to a courtesan, Rūpiṇikā, her daughter:

“Thy mother is a wicked woman, it would not be fitting to take her openly to paradise; but on the morning of the eleventh day the door of heaven is opened, and many of the Gaṇas, Siva’s companions, enter into it before anyone else is admitted. Among them I will introduce this mother of thine, if she assume their appearance. So shave her head with a razor, in such a manner that five locks shall be left, put a necklace of skulls round her neck, and stripping off her clothes, paint one side of her body with lamp-black and the other with red lead, for when she has in this way been made to resemble a Gaṇa, I shall find it an easy matter to get her into heaven.”

The Gaṇas were (p. 202) superhuman attendants on Siva and Pārvatī under Gaṇēśa and Nandi (Siva’s Bull or Vehicle). The passage presumes that they wore a necklace of skulls, went naked, partially shaved their heads and painted their bodies with lamp-black and red lead. Here, again, we are strongly reminded of Andamanese customs. Is it possible that the Gaṇas refer back to an actual savage non-Aryan tribe of very ancient India whose deities were the prototypes of Siva and Pārvatī?

Here is another instance of apparent non-Aryanism. King Chaṇḍamahāsena (p. 133)

“had made a large artificial elephant like his own, and after filling it with concealed warriors he placed it in the Vindhya forest.”

Mr Penzer in a footnote remarks that

“the introduction into a city of armed men hidden in jars is found in an Egyptian papyrus of the twentieth dynasty,”

and he refers also to the tale of Ali Baba. In Burma there are still made very large jars of glazed pottery called Pegu or Martaban (Mortivan) jars for storage purposes, quite large enough to hide human beings in, and there are many stories of their use for such a purpose. There was an old and considerable trade in them Eastwards and Westwards, and their existence would well account for such a story as that of Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves, and to give use to similar tales in India, which would then be non-Aryan in origin. [4]

In some instances whether the origin of one class of Somadeva’s tales is Aryan or not appears to be very doubtful, though prolonged research may still reveal the real source. are the stories of the Wandering Soul, and of the External Soul or Life-index or Life-token, which are common in Indian folk-tales, and are all found in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara – e.g. (pp. 37-38):

“Indradatta, who was an adept in magic, said: ‘I will enter the body of this dead [Nanda] king,’”

while

“Vyāḍi remained in an empty temple to guard the body of Indradatta.”

But (p. 39)

“the body of Indradatta was burned after Vyāḍi had been hustled out of the temple.”

Mr Penzer has excellent notes on these ideas, and it is difficult at present to conjecture whether they indicate an Aryan or a non-Aryan origin. Later on in the volume Chaṇḍamahāsena of Ujjayinī slays the Daitya (demon) Angāraka by (p. 127) smiting “him with an arrow in that hand which was his vital part.” Here, again, are we in the presence of Aryan or non-Aryan tradition?

Once again, Mr Penzer has a story and a valuable note on page 80 ff. on the wide spread of sign-language, commenting on the statement that the maiden Śrī, daughter of the king, made Devadatta a sign. She “took with her teeth a flower and threw it down to him,” which act his preceptor explained to him meant that he was “to go to this temple rich in flowers, called Puṣpadanta, and wait there.” Here the wide distribution of the idea conveyed in the use of Sign-language makes it difficult to suggest either an Aryan or a non-Aryan origin for it.

Yet, again, the form of the superhuman bird, Garuḍa (p. 141) and of its exploits is so Indian that one is loath to give it any but an Indian Aryan origin, but the nature of its spread is such that for the present, at any rate, it seems impossible to say whence it came, in or out of India. The same may be said about the idea of Metamorphosis by means of a charm (pp. 136-137), in order to forward the objects of the hero or the actors in a tale, about which a long book could be well written!

Also the notions about the Longings of Pregnancy and the Blood Covenant in their various aspects are so widely spread over the world that it seems as yet difficult to assert that they originated in India and migrated outwards.

So, too, the spread of making Phallic Cakes and the like at festivals is such that it seems quite as likely that the custom originally arose in Europe as in India. The same remark applies to Circumambulation at Hindu weddings with the object of reverence at the right hand. Mr Penzer’s elaborate note (p. 190 ff.) referring to marriage Vāsavadattā to the King of Vatsa (p. 184) seems to make the idea quite as old in Europe as in India or the East generally.

Lastly, in the course of the story of the founding of Pāṭaliputra (p. 22) occurs the incident of a pair of shoes which give “the power of flying through the air,” and of a staff with which whatever is written “turns out to be true.” On this Mr Penzer has (pp. 25-29) a long and valuable note: the “Magical Articles Motif in Folk-lore.” He thinks that “there is no doubt that it did travel from the East.”

But he hesitates as to this opinion and finally he says (p. 29):

“It seems very probable that the incident of the fight over the magical articles was directly derived from the East, while the idea of the magical articles themselves was, in some form or other, already established in Western Märchen.”

Does this account for its world-wide existence? May it not be that the idea of a magical article is non-Aryan and the particular uses to which it is put, in the folk-tales so far collected, are Aryan in origin? But even if they are the uses would not necessarily have arisen in India. There are clearly many questions yet to answer here, far as Mr Penzer has driven his probe into the mystery.

In one instance of a common folk-tale motif or incident5 we seem to be on the border-line between Aryan and non-Aryan. At page 32 we have a version of the Entrapped Suitor, where a woman holds up an illicit gallant to ridicule. In dealing with this tale and its concomitants, the Test of Chastity, the Faith Token and the Act of Truth, Mr Penzer in a long note states that it is to be found throughout both Asia and Europe, and he considers that “it forms without doubt an example of a migratory tale,” and is of opinion that “the original form of the story, and origin of all others, is that in the Ocean of Story” (p. 42). That is to say, it is Indian and migrated from India outwards. If Indian, is it, then, Aryan or non-Aryan?

This type of story in all its forms occurs in the volume at page 32 and in the stories of Devasmitā, Siddhikharī and Śaktimatī (p. 153 ff.), and Mr Penzer has some illuminating special notes thereon (pp. 165-171). But some of his parallels in Europe and Western Asia are very old, and if the idea at the root ot them all is Indian it must be very old also – much older than the Kathā Sarit Sāgara as we have it. Something of the same kind can be said of the stories of the Laughing Fish (pp. 46-47) and the Gift of Half one’s own Life (p. 188), and with even more force regarding the Letter of Death (p. 52), widely known in Europe also.

At page 84 is the well-known tale of King Śivi offering his flesh and finally all his body to protect a dove which had flown to him for shelter. This is believed to be Buddhistic in origin, but the idea is very old both in the East and in Europe, where it turns up in many forms, and in Shakespeare’s well-known borrowed tale of the Pound of Flesh. It is difficult to believe that it originated in India on the evidence at present available. The same comment is applicable to the story of Bālavinaṣṭaka, the Enfant Terrible at page 185, and to the Wishing Tree of Paradise, which is said (p. 144) to exist in Lankā, clearly from the context (p. 144) meaning Ceylon, of which the Rākṣasa (non-Aryan) Vibīṣaṇa was king. The whole story is interesting as it introduces the great Garuḍa bird and the Bālakhilyas, Elves engaged in austerities, as well as the Wishing Tree, the whole of which, the great bird, the elves and the tree, are world-wide in the East and Europe.

On the other hand, of ideas and customs which seem to be of Indian Aryan origin, and if found elsewhere to be primâ facie attributable to an Indian derivation, I may mention nostrums for procuring the birth of a son. The story of Devasmitā starts with a request from a merchant to some Brāhmans to procure him a son, which they do by means of ceremonies, and to “give an instance” a story is told of an “old-time king” who at a Brāhman suggestion, without demur kills his only son, over whom he had made a tremendous fuss because the child had been stung by an ant. Nostrums for procuring sons are peculiarly Indian, because of the Hindu’s necessity for an heir to perform his funeral rites in a manner that will secure him “salvation.” Murder of another person’s is a nostrum for securing an heir to the present day, as many cases in the Indian law courts show (see Indian Antiquary, vol. xxvii, p. 336). Various methods and customs for this purpose are very common in Indian folk-lore and seem to be an outcome of the Hindu religion.

I will now wind up this survey of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara by the presentation of what appear to me, primâ facie, to be instances of a possible folk-tale migration from Europe into India. At page 136 it is recounted that Yaugandharāyaṇa set out for Kauśambi via the Vindhya Forest and arrived at “ the burning ground of Mahākāla in Ujjayinī, which was densely tenanted by [ vētālas, i.e. ] vampires.” Here we have in thoroughly Indian form a reference to the well-known modern series of tales – the Baiṭāl Pachīsī – traced to the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, Book XII. But, as Mr Penzer points out in his note on this page, the Indian ideas about the vētāla closely resemble those of the Slavs about the vampire. Now, if we are to follow the modern researchers, who trace the Aryan migrations East and West from the South Russian plains, it is quite possible that the original migrants took with them the idea of the vampire – i.e. of the superhuman demoniacal tenant of dead bodies – wherever they or their influence wandered: so that in the vētāla we thus have an idea that wandered Eastwards from Southern Russia to India and not the other way round. I may here remark that the likeness of many Slavonic superstitions to those of India cannot but forcibly strike those who study the races of both Russia and India.

Again, in the story of Guṇāḍhya (pp. 76-78) there is a passage worth quoting in full. Kāṇabhūti explains to Guṇāḍhya that Bhūtivarman, a Rākṣasa possessed of “heavenly insight” said to him:

“‘We have no power in the day; wait, and I will tell you at night.’ I consented, and when night came on I asked him earnestly the reason why goblins delighted in disporting themselves, as they were doing. Then Bhūtivarman said to me: ‘Listen; I will relate what I heard Siva say in a conversation with Brahmā. Rākṣasas, Yakṣas and Piśāchas have no power in the day, being dazed with the brightness of the sun, therefore they delight in the night. And where the gods are not worshipped, and the Brāhmans, in due form, and where men eat contrary to the holy law, there also they have power. Where there is a man who abstains from flesh, or a virtuous woman, there they do not go. They never attack chaste men, heroes, or men awake.’”

Taking all the words after “they delight in the night” as a Brahmanical addition, the other notions appear to me to be originally European and not Asiatic or Indian, and if the idea is right, the Aryans brought them and their forerunners to India with them in their early wanderings. Research may show the truth. At any rate Mr Penzer’s note traces the notions in Ancient Egypt and China.

And here, after only just lifting the fringe of the curtain hiding the mystery, I must cease trespassing on Mr Penzer’s good nature and conclude this Foreword, hoping that something useful has been said towards indicating how research can be beneficially conducted in the future, and saying once again how greatly students of folk-lore have reason to be thankful to Mr Penzer for his present efforts.

Richard Carnac Temple.

Montreux, March 1924

 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See J. C. Chatterjee, Kashmir Shaivaism (1914); Grierson and Barnett, Lallā-vākyāni (1920), and a forthcoming work on the last by myself, The Word of Lallā, the Prophetess, Cambridge University Press (1924).

[2] I take the story of The Chanter of the Sāma Veda and the Courtesan (pp. 64-65) as good-natured chaff, showing how a learned Brāhman can be a fool in the ways of the world, the Chanter of the Sāma Veda being a species of our old friend Verdant Green of Oxford.

[3] Report on the Census of India, Part I, vol. iii (“Andaman and Nicobar Islands”), p. 2S0.

[4] See Indian Antiquary, vol. xxii, p. 364, and vol. xxxiii, p. 159.

[5] See Mr Penzer’s note (p. 29) on the use of the term motif for the incident, theme, trait of a story.

 

Introduction

The Ocean of Story, or, to give it its full Sanskrit title, the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, is, for its size, the earliest collection of stories extant in the world. Its author, or rather its compiler, was a Brāhman named Somadeva. Unfortunately we know nothing of him, except what he himself has told us in the short poem at the end of his work, and what we may gather of his ideas and religious beliefs from the work itself.

In the first place let us look at the title he has chosen for his collection. He felt that his great work united in itself all stories, as the ocean does all rivers. Every stream of myth and mystery flowing down from the snowy heights of sacred Himālaya would sooner or later reach the ocean, other streams from other mountains would do likewise, till at last fancy would create an ocean full of stories of every conceivable description – tales of wondrous maidens and their fearless lovers, of kings and cities, of statecraft and intrigue, of magic and spells, of treachery, trickery, murder and war, tales of blood-sucking vampires, devils, goblins and ghouls, stories of animals in fact and fable, and stories too of beggars, ascetics, drunkards, gamblers, prostitutes and bawds.

This is the Ocean of Story; this the mirror of Indian imagination that Somadeva has left as a legacy to posterity.

Following out his metaphor he has divided the work into one hundred and twenty-four chapters, called tarangas – “waves” or “billows while a further (and independent) division into eighteen lambakas – “surges” or “swells” was made by Brockhaus, whose text is that used by Tawney.

The whole work contains 22,000 distichs, or élokas, which gives some idea of its immense size. It is nearly twice as long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together.

The short poem of Somadeva already referred to was not included by Brockhaus in his text, but was printed later from MS. material by Bühler. From this it appears that the name of our author was Soma – i.e. Somadeva. He was the son of a virtuous Brāhman named Rāma. His magnum opus was written for the amusement of Sūryavatī, wife of King Ananta of Kashmir, at whose court Somadeva was poet.

The history of Kashmir at this period is one of discontent, intrigue, bloodshed and despair. The story of Ananta’s two sons, Kalaśa and Harsha – the worthless degenerate life of the former, the brilliant but ruthless life of the latter, the suicide of Ananta himself and resulting chaos – is all to be read in the Rāja-tarangiṇī, or Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir.

This tragic history forms as dark and grim a background for the setting of Somadeva’s tales as did the plague of Florence for Boccaccio’s Cento Novelle nearly three hundred years later.

It is, however, these historical events in the history of Kashmir which help us in determining our author’s date with any degree of certainty.

Ananta surrendered his throne in 1063 to his eldest son Kalaśa, only to return to it a few years later. In 1077 he again retired. This time Kalaśa attacked his father openly and seized all his wealth. Ananta killed himself in despair and Sūryavatī threw herself on the funeral pyre. This was in 1081.

It was between the first and second retirements of Ananta from the throne that Somadeva wrote – possibly about 1070. One can almost imagine that these stories were compiled in an effort to take the mind of the unhappy queen off the troubles and trials which so unremittingly beset her and her court.

He tells us that the Ocean of Story is not his original work, but is taken from a much larger collection by one Guṇāḍhya, known as the Bṛhat Kathā, or Great Tale.

The MS. of this Great Tale has not been found. In his first book Somadeva gives us the legendary history of it, showing how it was related in turn by Siva, Puṣpadanta, Kāṇabhūti, Guṇāḍhya and Sātavāhana; the latter at first rejected it, and in despair Guṇāḍhya began to burn it leaf by leaf – 600,000 distichs are thus lost. Sātavāhana reappears and saves the rest (100,000 couplets), which became known as the Bṛhat Kathā. He added to it a lambaka, or book, explaining its marvellous history. This book Soma-deva retains in full, and it forms about half of our first volume.

The Ocean of Story is not the only rendition of the Great Tale, for twenty or thirty years previously Kṣemendra had written his Bṛhat Kathā Mañjarī. Compared with Somadeva’s work it pales into insignificance, lacking the charm of language, elegance of style, masterly arrangement and metrical skill of the later production. Moreover, Kṣemendra’s collection is only a third the length of the Ocean of Story.

As early as 1871 Professor Bühler (Indian Antiquary, p. 302 et seq.) proved these two important facts: firstly, that Somadeva and Kṣemendra used the same text, and secondly, that they worked entirely independently from one another.

It was, however, many years before this that the Ocean of Story became known to European scholars.

In 1824 that great pioneer of Sanskrit learning, Professor

H. H. Wilson, gave a summary of the first five chapters (or lambakas) in the Oriental Quarterly Magazine. The first edition of the work was undertaken by Professor Brockhaus. In 1839 he issued the first five chapters only, and it was not till 1862 that the remaining thirteen appeared. Both publications formed part of the Abhandlungen der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft.

It was this text which Tawney used for his translation published by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in the Bibliotheca Indica, 1880-1884 (the index not appearing till 1887). Brockhaus’ edition was based primarily on six MSS., though in the second part of the work he apparently had not so many at his disposal. Tawney was not satisfied with several of Brockhaus’ readings, and consequently made numerous fresh renderings or suggestions largely taken from MSS. borrowed from the Calcutta College and from three India Office MSS. lent him by Dr Rost.

In 1889 Durgāprasād issued the Bombay edition, printed at the Nirṇayasāgara Press, which was produced from

Brockhaus’ edition and two Bombay MSS. This is the latest text now available and proves the correctness of many of Tawney’s readings where he felt the Brockhaus text was in fault.

Although a comparison between these two texts would be instructive, its place is not in a general introduction like this.

The late Professor Speyer of the Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam has written in a most authoritative manner on the whole subject, and has made detailed comparisons and criticisms of the text of Brockhaus and that of Durgāprasād. The Bureau de la section des Lettres of the Amsterdam Academy has very kindly given me leave to incorporate this work of Professor Speyer in the present edition of the Ocean of Story, which I hope to do in a later volume. It is needless to emphasise the value this addition will have to the student of Sanskrit and philology.

Turning now to the actual contents of the Ocean of Story, the general reader will continually recognise stories familiar to him from childhood. The student of Indian literature will find well-known tales from the Pañchatantra and the Mahābhārata, as well as strange fantastic myths of early Rig-Veda days. He will encounter whole series of stories, such as the Vetālapanchavimśati or cycle of Demon stories. But apart from this the work contains much original matter, which Somadeva handles with the ease and skill of a master of his art. The appeal of his stories is immediate and lasting, and time has proved incapable of robbing them of their freshness and fascination.

The Ocean of Story, therefore, may be regarded as an attempt to present as a single whole the essence of that rich Indian imagination which had found expression in a literature and art stretching back to the days of the intermingling of the Aryan and Dravidian stocks nearly two thousand years before the Christian era.

India is indeed the home of story-telling. It was from here that the Persians learned the art, and passed it on to the Arabians. From the Middle East the tales found their way to Constantinople and Venice, and finally appeared in the pages of Boccaccio, Chaucer and La Fontaine.

It was not until Benfey wrote his famous introduction to the Pañchatantra that we began to realise what a great debt the Western tales owed to the East.

Although it is well known to students of folk-lore, I am still hoping to see the great work of Benfey translated into English and suitably annotated by such a body as the Folk-Lore Society.

When Galland first introduced the Arabian Nights into Europe at the beginning of the eighteenth century the chief attraction was the originality of the Oriental settings and the strange manners and customs, now for the first time described. It was thought that he had made up the tales himself. In time many of the originals were found and people changed their opinions. Even in Burton’s day there still remained a number of Galland’s tales of which no text could be traced, although from the very first Burton maintained that such texts did exist. The original “Aladdin” was discovered while Burton’s edition was actually coming out, and “Ali Baba” was found by Dr D. B. Macdonald as recently as 1908. The influence of the Arabian Nights on European contes populaires must not be overlooked, nor must its unde derivator be forgotten. It is only in quite recent times that the Indian origin of much of the Alf Layla Wa Layla has been realised, and the sifting of the different recensions been commenced.

The great advance made in the study of Sanskrit has shown that incidents in stories w ell known to every European child existed in India over two thousand years ago. This does not necessarily mean that the story, or incident in the story, travelled, slowly but surely, from India to the English nursery. The whole question is most fascinating, and I shall have occasion to discuss the migration of some of the tales as they appear; it is particularly interesting to note that some of the early stories from the Egyptian papyri are so similar to tales in the Ocean of Story that one is led at once to suspect some connection.

Although I am leaving further discussion on the subject to the notes and appendices which appear in each of these ten volumes, yet I feel I must mention one factor, which we must not forget – environment. In warm latitudes the temperature has naturally produced a general laxity in the habits of the people, and in Eastern countries the often exaggerated code of hospitality, coupled with the exclusion of women and consequential gatherings of men in the cool of the evenings, has given great impetus to story-telling. So much so, indeed, that it has produced the Rāwī, or professional story-teller – an important member of the community unknown in cooler latitudes, where the story-telling is almost entirely confined to the family circle.

Thus the migratory possibilities of tales in the East are far greater than those in the West. Added to this is the antiquity of Eastern civilisation, compared with which that of the West is but of yesterday.

A study of the movements of Asiatic peoples, their early voyages of exploration and trade, their intermarrying, and their extensive commerce in slaves of every nationality will help to show how not only their stories, but also the customs, architecture, religions and languages, became transplanted to foreign soil, where they either throve and influenced their surroundings, or found their new environment too strong for them.

Thus in this great storehouse of fiction, the Ocean of Story, we shall continually come upon tales in the earliest form yet known.

It is here that I intend to trace the literary history of the incident, trait, or motif and, by such evidence as I can procure, try to formulate some definite ideas as to its true history. In many cases this will be impossible, in others little more than mere conjecture. Full bibliographical details will be given, so that readers can form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions concerning this most fascinating study.

With regard to the method of transliteration adopted throughout the work, I have followed, as far as possible, the system approved by the International Oriental Congress of 1894. This system is almost identical with that approved by the Committee on Transliteration appointed by the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society in January 1922.

For full tables of the Sanskrit signs and their English equivalents reference should be made to the Journ. Roy. As. Soc., July 1923, pp. 525-531; and January 1924, pp. 171-173. In the case of the long quantity of a vowel, Tawney used an acute accent. This has now been changed to a macron, or horizontal line. It is interesting to mention that Tawney regretted having used the acute accent and specially asked me to change it.

Short vowels have no mark, thus the i in Siva should not be pronounced long.

Passing on to the translation itself, I would stress the fact that Tawney was most anxious to convey in his English rendering not only the meaning, but also the atmosphere of the original. In this he has succeeded, and the ancient Hindu environment at once makes itself felt. In a previous work, Two Centuries of Bhartṛhari, Tawney alludes to this very point. “I am sensible,” he says, “that, in the present attempt, I have retained much local colouring. For instance, the idea of worshipping the feet of a god or great man, though it frequently occurs in Indian literature, will undoubtedly move the laughter of Englishmen unacquainted with Sanskrit, especially if they happen to belong to that class of readers who rivet their attention on the accidental and remain blind to the essential. But a certain measure of fidelity to the original, even at the risk of making oneself ridiculous, is better than the studied dishonesty which characterises so many translations of Oriental poets.”

Although the Ocean of Story doubtless contains phrases, similes, metaphors and constructions which may at first strike the “Englishman unacquainted with Sanskrit” as unusual and exaggerated, yet I feel that as he reads he will find that it is those very “peculiarities” which are slowly creating an un-English, but none the less delightful, atmosphere, and which give the whole work a charm all its own.

In a work of this magnitude it is necessary to say something of the arrangement of the text, the numbering of the stories, the scope of the fresh annotation and the system of indexing employed.

The text is left entirely as translated by the late Charles Tawney except where certain omissions have been adjusted or more literal renderings added. In one or two cases a short story left out by Tawney has been restored, thus making the work absolutely complete in every detail.

These fresh translations have been made by Dr L. D. Barnett, Keeper of the Department of Oriental Printed Books and MSS. in the British Museum.

In Volume I no fresh translations have been added except where the text of Durgāprasād seems to be a distinct improvement on that of Brockhaus. In these cases I have simply added a note at the bottom of the page giving the new reading.

The system of numbering the stories requires a detailed explanation. In order that the reader may know exactly what story he is reading and can pick up the thread of a tale long since suspended, each story will have a distinct number. It will be numbered by an Arabic numeral; while a substory will have the addition of a letter, a, b, c, etc., and a sub-sub-story will have the letter repeated. It often happens that a story is broken off three or four times; each time we return to that main story its special number reappears with it. Thus every tale will be kept separate and facilities for folk-lore reference will be afforded.

Sometimes in a long story numerous incidents occur which cannot be numbered separately. These are shown by side-headings, which can, however, easily be catalogued or referred to by the help of the number of the story in which they occur.

Two considerations other than those mentioned need explanation. There is one main story which runs throughout the entire work, though towards the end it takes a very back seat, especially where a large collection of stories, like the Vikram cycle, appear. This main story is numbered M, without any Arabic numeral.

Secondly, Book I is all introductory. It too has a main story running through it, which I call MI – i.e. Main (Introduction). The first story is 1, the first sub-story 1a, the first sub-sub-story Iaa, and so on. There are four stories in MI, so when Book II commences the first story is 5, as the numbering does not start again, but runs straight on. A glance at the Contents pages at the very beginning of this volume will explain exactly what I am trying to convey.

We will now turn to the question of the fresh annotations. So great have been our strides in folk-lore, anthropology and their kindred subjects since Tawney’s day, that many of the original notes can be largely supplemented, corrected, or entirely rewritten in the light of recent research. Further, in some cases subjects are touched on that in Victorian days would be passed over in silence, but to-day convention allows a scholarly treatment of them, and does not demand that they “be veiled in the obscurity of a learned tongue.”

If notes are of only a few lines they appear at the bottom of the page; if longer, and there are few other notes coming immediately after, the note goes at the bottom of two or three consecutive pages. If, however, the opposite is the case, the note is put separately at the end of the chapter. Thus in some instances there will be two or three notes at the end of a chapter.

Sometimes we light on a subject on which no comprehensive article has been written. Such a note may run to thirty or more pages. This, then, forms an appendix at the end of a volume.

Each note which I have written is initialed by me, so that it will be quite clear which notes are mine and which those of Tawney. Occasionally a note may be written by both Tawney and myself. In these cases his remarks come first, and are separated from mine which follow by a rule, thus: -. In some of these notes recent research may have proved, disproved, or amplified Tawney’s original note. It is therefore considered best to give both the original note and the fresh one following it.

It often happens that an old edition of a work quoted by Tawney has been completely superseded by a more recent one. In these cases if the reference is more detailed and up-to-date in the new edition, the original one is disregarded. English translations of many works can now be quoted which in Tawney’s day were only to be found in their original tongues, or in an Italian or German translation.

These fresh references have accordingly been added.

The Terminal Essay and all appendices are entirely fresh, as is also the system of numbering the stories, and the elaborate indexing.

At the end of each volume are two indices. The first contains all Sanskrit words and names, also proper names of peoples, towns, etc., in any language. The second, and by far the larger of the two, is the General Index. Important references may be cross-indexed six times. Nothing of the least possible importance is omitted: every note, appendix and every portion of the text is fully indexed.

If space permits I shall include a volume containing the two accumulated indices of the entire work, together with a list of authors, a bibliography of the Ocean of Story iself, and a list of all the stories in alphabetical order.

In conclusion I would like to acknowledge the help I have received from so many private individuals and learned institutions. In the first place I would particularly mention those gentlemen who have read through my proofs, or some particular portion of them, and given me most valuable advice: Sir Richard Temple, Dr L. D. Barnett, Professor R. L. Turner, Mr C. Fenton (who has also drawn my attention to important Central American analogies) and Sir Aurel Stein; while Mr R. Campbell Thompson has criticised my Babylonian and Assyrian notes, and Sir Wallis Budge, Dr H. R. Hall, and Professor G. Eliot Smith have helped me in points connected with Egyptology.

As the list of correspondents giving information increases nearly every day, it is impossible to include them all in this first volume. I would, however, particularly mention Mr J. Allen, Professor Maurice Bloomfield, Mr F. H. Brown, Mr A. G. Ellis, Mr R. E. Enthoven, Dr Lionel Giles, Mr T. A. Joyce, Mr W. G. Partington, Brigadier-General Sir Percy Sykes, Mr Robert Sewell, Dr F. W. Thomas and Mr Edgar Thurston.

Of the following institutions and learned societies I would thank the librarians and their assistants for the valuable help they have given and kindness they have always shown the Royal Asiatic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Geological Society, the Folk-Lore Society, the India Office Library, School of Oriental Studies Library, the British Museum Library, the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons, the Wellcombe Medical Museum, the Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, and finally I owe a special debt of gratitude to the Asiatic Society of Bengal for their permission to use the original edition of the Kathā Sarit Sāgara.

Chapter I

INVOCATION [1]

May the dark neck of Śiva, [2] which the God of Love [3] has, so to speak, surrounded with nooses in the form of the alluring looks of Pārvatī reclining on his bosom, assign to you prosperity.

May that Victor of Obstacles, [4] who, after sweeping away the stars with his trunk in the delirious joy of the evening dance, seems to create others with the spray issuing from his hissing [5] mouth, protect you.

After worshipping the Goddess of Speech, the lamp that illuminates countless objects, [6] I compose this collection which contains the pith of the Bṛhat-Kathā.

 

[1] Compare with the introduction to The Thousand Nights and a Night, where Allah, Mohammed and his family are invoked. – n.m.p.

[2] His neck is dark because at the Churning of the Ocean poison came up and was swallowed by Śiva to save creation from disaster. The poison was held in his throat, hence he is called Nīlakaṇṭha (the blue-throated one). For the various accounts of the Churning of the Ocean see Mahābhārata, trans. by P. C. Roy, new edition, 1919, etc., Calcutta, vol. i, part i, pp. 55-57 (Book I, Sects. XVII, XVIII); Rāmāyaṇa, trans. by Carey and Marshman, Serampore, 1806, vol. 1, p. 41 et seq. (Book I, Sect. XXXVI); Viṣṇu Purāṇa, vol. i, H. H. Wilson’s Collected Works, 1864, p. 142 et seq. – n.m.p.

[3] I.e. Kāma, who here is simply the Hindu Cupid. – n.m.p.

[4] Dr Brockhaus explains this of Gaṇeśa: he is often associated with Śiva in the dance. So the poet invokes two gods, Śiva and Gaṇeśa, and one goddess, Sarasvatī, the goddess of speech and learning. – It is in his form as Vināyaka, or Vighneśa, that Gaṇeśa is the "Victor” or, better, “Remover of Obstacles.” – n.m.p.

[5] Sītkāra: a sound made by drawing in the breath, expressive of pleasure. [6] There is a double meaning: padārtha also means words and their meanings.

 

SUMMARY OF THE WORK

The first book in my collection is called Kāthapīṭha, then comes Kathāmukha, then the third book named Lāvānaka, then follows Naravāhanadattajanana, and then the book called Chaturdārikā, and then Madanamanchukā, then the seventh book named Ratnaprabhā, and then the eighth book named Sūryaprabhā, then Alankāravatl, then Saktiyaśas, and then the eleventh book called Velā, then comes Śaśānkavatī, and then Madirāvatī, then comes the book called Pancha, followed by Mahābhisheka, and then Suratamanjarī, then Padmāvatī, and then will follow the eighteenth book Viṣamaśīla.

This book is precisely on the model of that from which it is taken, there is not even the slightest deviation, only such language is selected as tends to abridge the prolixity of the work; the observance of propriety and natural connection, and the joining together of the portions of the poem so as not to interfere with the spirit of the stories, are as far as possible kept in view: I have not made this attempt through a desire of a reputation for ingenuity, but in order to facilitate the recollection of a multitude of various tales.

Appendix I – Mythical Beings

The mythical beings mentioned in the Ocean of Story are:

Apsaras, Asura, Bhūta, Daitya, Dānava, Dasyus, Gaṇa, Gandharva, Guhyaka, Kinnara, Nāga, Piśācha, Kumbhāṇḍa, Kushmāṇḍa, Rākṣasa, Siddha, Vetāla, Vidyādhara, Yakṣa

 

Of the above the great majority are mentioned in Book I, but Apsaras, Daitya and Dānava occur for the first time in Book II, Vetāla in Book V, Kumbhāṇḍa in Book VIII, Dasyus in Book IX, Bhūta in Book XII, and Kushmānda in Book XVII.

It is possible to classify them under four headings as follows: –

Enemies of the gods, very rarely visiting the earth: Asura, Daitya, Dānava.

Servants of the gods, frequently connected with mortals: Gandharva, Apsaras, Gaṇa, Kinnara, Guhyaka and Yakṣa.

Independent superhumans, often mixing with mortals: Nāga, Siddha and Vidyādhara.

Demons, hostile to mankind: Rākṣasa, Piśācha, Vetāla, Bhūta, Dasyus, Kumbhāṇḍa, Kushmāṇḍa.

 

1. Enemies of the Gods

The origin of the terms Asura, Daitya and Dānava is of the greatest importance in attempting to ascertain the exact position they hold in Indian mythology. It is not sufficient merely to say they are usually applied to the enemies of the gods.

Although many derivations of the word asura have been suggested, it seems very probable that the simplest is the most correct – namely, that it comes from asu, spirit, life-breath. (See Brugmann, Vergl. Gramm., ii, p. 189.) It means, therefore, “spiritual being,” and, as such, is applied to nearly all the greater Vedic gods.

Among the suggested derivations, however, mention may be made of that which is looked for in Mesopotamia. Attempts have been made to trace it thence to India. As the theory is attractive I will attempt to give the main lines of argument.

In the early Vedas, including the older hymns of the Ṛg-Veda, the word asura is an alternative designation for “deity,” or “friendly gods,” besides being used as an epithet of the most important gods, such as Varuṇa, Rudra, etc. In the later Vedas, and especially in the Purāṇas, asura is used to denote a formidable enemy of the gods (Devas). It is this strange contradiction of meanings that has led scholars to suspect some foreign origin of the word, and to attempt to trace its etymology.

Assur, Asur, Ashir, or Ashur was the national god of Assyria from whom both the country and its primitive capital took their names. The exact meaning of the word is not known; it has been interpreted as “arbiter,” “overseer,” or “lord,” but its original meaning is wrapped in mystery. The Persians borrowed the word, which became alnura, meaning “lord” or “god.” The Vedic Hindus did likewise, but gradually altered the meaning to the exact opposite. Various suggestions are put forward to account for this.

The discovery of a treaty in Asia Minor between the King of the Hittites and the King of Mitani (see Joum. Roy. Asiatic Soc., 1909, p. 721 et seq.) shows that the Vedic Aryans were neighbours of the Assyrians, so it may be that the progress of these Aryans into India was contested by their neighbours, the Asuras, just in the same way as later it was contested by the Dasyus in India itself.

Thus in time, when the religious system began to be fully developed, reminiscences of the human Asuras and their fights with the Aryans would be transformed into a myth of the enmity between the Devas (gods) and Asuras. (For details of this theory see Bhandarkar’s “The Aryans in the Land of the Assurs,” Joum. Bombay Br. Roy. As. Soc., vol. xxv, 1918, p. 76 et seq.)

We may, however, find further possibilities from Assyria’s other neighbours, the Iranians. As I have already mentioned, they used the word ahura to mean “lord” or “god,” but it is significant to note that daëva denoted evil spirits. The various nations of the Mesopotamian area had many gods in common, but their different interpretations of the speculative philosophy of life soon led them into different paths of religious thought and application. Zoroaster’s doctrine helped to widen this breach when he made the evil spirits appear in the Avesta as daēvas. In India the conception of asura gradually became a god of reverence and fear with an awful divine character, while deva became more friendly in its meaning and kinder to humans. Zoroaster, however, looking upon the daēvas as upstarts who were gradually ousting the original position of the Asuras, elevated the latter and added the epithet Mazdāo, the “wise,” to their name. Thus arose the Persian Ahurō Mazdāo, which in time became Ormazd, the “Wise Lord,” the “All-father.” The dāevas, in inverse ratio, became enemies of the gods. In India, as we have seen, the exact opposite had taken place, and thus the curious difference of meaning is brought about.

It is often said that the word asura means “not-god,” the negative “a” being prefixed to sura, which means “god.” This, however, is incorrect, the exact opposite being the case. When the Asuras had become the enemies of the gods, the word sura was formed as meaning the opposite of asura.

Turning now to the terms Daitya and Dānava, we find that Daitya means “descendant of Diti.” Diti is a female deity mentioned in the Ṛg-Veda and Atharva-Veda, whose particular nature was apparently little known. She is usually regarded as the sister of Āditya, to whom she probably owes her existence (cf. the way in which sura was formed from asura). The name Āditya is used as a metronymic from Aditi to denote some of the most important deities; thus their enemies were named Daityas after Diti.

According to the Mahābhārata (i, 65) the Asura race was derived from five daughters of Dakṣa, son of Brāhma. Of these daughters two were Aditi and Diti. A third was Dānu, from whom the name Dānava is derived. Thus the close relationship of the three terms will be realised, although it is only the word asura that may have an ancient extraneous history.

In the Ocean of Story the Asuras, Daityas and Dānavas are, with few exceptions, represented as the enemies of the gods. In Book VIII, however, where the terms asura and dānava are used synonymously, we find one called Maya who comes to earth in order to teach the hero the magic sciences. To do this he takes the prince back to Pātāla, which is the usual dwelling-place not only of the Asuras, but also of the Nāgas, or snake-gods. Pātāla is described as a place of great beauty, with magnificent castles and abundance of every kind of wealth. Some of the Asuras prefer to dwell outside Pātāla, either in the air, in heaven, or even on earth itself.

The widely different legendary accounts of the history of the Asuras are to be found in the Mahābhārata and the Purāṇas. (See Wilson’s Viṣṇu Purāṇa, i, 97; ii, 69.)

The power that Asuras can obtain is shown by the story of Jalandhara, an Asura who actually conquered Viṣṇu, and whom neither Siva nor Indra could destroy.

In the Churning of the Ocean the gods found they could not get on without the help of the Asuras. Occasionally they have actually been held in respect and worshipped. In the Vāyu Purāṇa is the history of Gaya, an Asura who was so devout in the worship of Viṣṇu that his accumulated merit alarmed the gods. (This legend is given in a note in Chapter XCIII of this work, when Gaya is actually referred to.)

Rāhu should also be mentioned, who is the Asura causing the eclipses of the sun and moon.

Further details will be found in H. Jacobi’s article, under “Daitya,” in Hastings’ Ency. Bel. Eth., vol. iv, p. 390 et seq.

It is interesting to note that the term āsura is applied to marriage by capture. It forms with the paiśācha variety the two kinds of marriage condemned by Manu as altogether improper. In modern days, however, the āsura form is recognised even for the Vaiśya and Sūdra castes.

 

2. Servants (or Attendants) of the Gods

Foremost among these are the Gandharvas and Apsa-rases.

In the early Vedas the Gandharvas occupy a minor position, which in later days became more prominent. They are trusted servants of the gods, having guard of the celestial soma, and so become heavenly physicians, as soma is a panacea. They also direct the sun’s horses and act as servants to Agni, God of Fire and Light, and to Varuṇa, the divine judge. They dwell in the fathomless spaces of the air, and stand erect on the vault of heaven. They are also (especially in the Avesta) connected with the waters, and in the later Vedas have the Apsarases, who were originally water-nymphs, as wives or mistresses. It is at this period, too, that they become especially fond of and dangerous to women, but at the same time they are the tutelary deities of women and marriage. They are always represented as being gorgeously clad and carrying shining weapons.

In post-Vedic times they are the celestial singers and musicians at Indra’s Court, where they live in company with the Apsarases. They wander about the great spaces of air at random. Thus the term gandharvanagara means “mirage” – literally, the “city of the Gandharvas.”

They often visit humans, being attracted by beautiful women.

In number they vary greatly in different accounts. They are twelve, twenty-seven, or innumerable.

The Viṣṇu Purāṇa says they are the offspring of Brahmā, and recounts how 60,000,000 of them warred against the Nāgas, or snake-gods, but they were destroyed with Viṣṇu’s help.

Finally, they lend their name to a form of marriage. When two people desire mutual intercourse the resulting marriage is called gāndharva, because these spirits of the air are the only witnesses. Full details of the gāndharva marriage have already been given in this volume (pp. 87, 88).

We now pass on to the Apsarases, who, as we have already seen, were originally water-nymphs. (Their very name means “moving in the waters.”) They are seldom mentioned in the Vedas, Urvaśī, who became the wife of King Purūravas, being one of the most famous. (Ṛg-Veda, x, 95, and Ocean of Story, Chapter XVIII.)

In the later Vedas they frequent trees, which continually resound with the music of their lutes and cymbals.

In the Epics they become the wives of the Gandharvas, whom they join as singers, dancers and musicians in Indra’s Court. They serve the gods in other capacities; for instance, if a pious devotee has acquired so much power by his austerities that the gods themselves are in danger of being subservient to him, a beautiful Apsaras is at once dispatched to distract him from his devotions (e.g. Menakā seduced Viśvāmitra and became the mother of Śakuntalā).

The beauty and voluptuous nature of the Apsarases is always emphasised, and they are held out as the reward for fallen heroes in Indra’s paradise. In this they resemble the Mohammedan houris.

According to the Rāmāyaṇa and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa they were produced at the Churning of the Ocean. When they first appeared in this way, neither the gods nor the Asuras would have them as their wives; consequently they became promiscuous in their affections. They have the power of changing their forms, and are most helpful and affectionate to mortals whom they favour.

They preside over the fortunes of the gaming-table, and it is here that their friendship is most desirable.

The estimate of their number varies, but it is usually put at 35,000,000, of which 1060 are the chief.

In the Ocean of Story they often fall in love with mortals, but are usually under some curse for past misbehaviour. In Chapter XXVIII King Sushena recognises his future Apsaras wife as divine, “since her feet do not touch the dust, and her eye does not wink.” As soon as she bears him a child she is forced to return to her abode in the heavens.

Gaṇa is the name given to an attendant of Siva and Pārvatī. The chief is Ganeśa (“Lord of Gaṇas”), who is a son of Siva and Pārvatī. He it was who ranked as chief of the followers of Siva, hence all the others are termed Gaṇas. The position seems, however, to have been an honorary one as far as Gaṇeśa was concerned, for we find in actual practice that Nandi, Siva’s bull, was leader of the Gaṇas. As we have seen in the Introduction to the Ocean of Story, both Siva and Pārvatī kept strict control over their Gaṇas, and any breach of discipline was punished by banishment from Kailāsa – usually to the world of mortals, where they had to serve their time till some event or other brought the curse to an end.

Kinnaras, Guhyakas and Yakṣas are all subjects to Kuvera, or Vaiśravaṇa, the God of Wealth and Lord of Treasures.

Kinnaras sing and play before Kuvera, and have human bodies and horses’ heads. The Kimpuruṣas, who have horses’ bodies and human heads (like the centaurs), are also servants of Kuvera, but are not mentioned in the Ocean of Story.

The Guhyakas help to guard Kuvera’s treasure and dwell in caves. They are often (as in Chapter VI of the Ocean of Story) synonymous with Yakṣas. The beings who assisted Kuvera in guarding treasures were originally called Rakṣas, but the name savoured too much of the demons, the Rākṣasas, who were subject to Rāvaṇa, the half-brother of Kuvera – so the name Yakṣas was adopted. The word yakṣa means “being possessed of magical powers,” which, as we shall see later, is practically the same meaning as vidyādhara.

It appears that both Yakṣas and Rākṣasas come under the heading of Rakṣas, the former being friendly to man and servants of Kuvera, the latter being demons and hostile to man.

 

3. Independent Superhumans

The Nāgas are snake-gods dwelling in Pātāla, the underworld, in a city called Bhogavatī. Although snake-worship dates from the earliest times in India, there is but little mention of Nāgas in the Vedas. In the Epics, however, they attain full recognition and figure largely in the Mahābhārata. Here their origin is traced to Kadrū and Kaśyapa, and their destruction through the sacrifice of Janamejaya is related.

In some stories they retain their reptilian character throughout; in others they possess human heads, or are human as far as the waist. They are usually friendly to man unless ill-treated, when they have their revenge if not duly propitiated.

Garuḍa, the sun-god, is their enemy (see the Ocean of Story, Chapter LXI), from whom they fly. As the snake is sometimes looked upon as representative of darkness, the idea has arisen that they are eaten by Garuḍa, or the dawn, each morning (see pp. 103-105 of this volume).

The extent of serpent-worship in India can be imagined when we read in Crooke’s Folk-Lore of Northern India (vol. ii, p. 122) that in the North-West Provinces there are over 25,000 Nāga-worshippers, and in the census-returns 123 people recorded themselves as votaries of Gūga, the snake-god.

It would be out of place here to give details of the ceremonies, superstitions and archæological remains of snake-worship throughout India. I would merely refer readers to Cook’s article, “Serpent-Worship,” in the Ency. Brit., vol. xxiv, pp. 676-682, and that by Macculloch, Crooke and Welsford in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. xi, pp. 399-423. Both contain full bibliographical references.

Readers will remember the amazing story in the Nights (Burton, vol. v, p. 298 to the end of the volume) of “The Queen of the Serpents,” whose head alone is human, and the sub-story, “The Adventures of Bulukiya,” where Solomon and his ring are guarded by fiery serpents. The relationship of the Nāgas to the Piśāchas is discussed below, in section 4. Their origin, like that of the Piśāchas, was probably a primitive hill tribe of North India.

Siddhas play a very unimportant part in Hindu mythology. They are described as kindly ghosts who always behave in a most friendly manner to mankind. They are usually mentioned in company with Gaṇas and Vidyādharas, as at the commencement of the Ocean of Story. In the earlier mythology they were called Sādhyas (Manu, i, 22), where their great purity is emphasised.

Vidyādharas play a very important part in the Ocean of Story and require little explanation here, as their habits, abode and relations with mortals are fully detailed in the work itself.

Their government is similar to that in the great cities on earth; they have their kings, viziers, wives and families. They possess very great knowledge, especially in magical sciences, and can assume any form they wish. Their name means “possessing spells or witchcraft.”

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4. Demons

The Rākṣasas are the most prominent among malicious superhumans. From the Ṛg-Veda days they have delighted in disturbing sacrifices, worrying devout men when engaged in prayer, animating dead bodies and generally living up to the meaning of their name, “the harmers” or “destroyers.”

In appearance they are terrifying and monstrous. In the Atharva-Veda they are deformed, and blue, green or yellow in colour. Their eyes, like those of the Arabian jinn, are long slits up and down, their finger-nails are poisonous, and their touch most dangerous. They eat human flesh and also that of horses. Pārvatī gave them power to arrive at maturity at birth.

It is at night that their power is at its height, and it is then that they prowl about the burning-grounds in search of corpses or humans. They are, moreover, possessors of remarkable riches, which they bestow on those they favour.

Chief among Rākṣasas is Rāvaṇa, the great enemy of Rāma. Reference should be made to Crooke’s Folk-Lore of Northern India, vol. i, p. 246 et seq.

They have also given the name to one of the eight forms of marriage which Manu says is lawful only for men of the Kṣatriya caste.

The Piśāchas are rather similar to the Rākṣasas, their chief activities being in leading people out of their way, haunting cemeteries, eating human flesh and indulging in every kind of wickedness. In Chapter XXVIII of the Ocean of Story they appear to possess healing power, and, after being duly propitiated, cure disease.

In the Vedas they are described as kravyād, “eaters of raw flesh,” which is perhaps the etymological sense of the word Piśācha itself. In the Rāmayāṇa they appear occasionally as ghouls, but in the Mahābhārata besides being ghouls they are continually represented as human beings living in the north-west of India, the Himālayas and Central Asia. This is one of the points which has led Sir George Grierson to believe in the human origin of the Piśāchas. (See the numerous references given in my note on Paiśāchī, the Piśācha’s language, on pp. 92, 93.)

Macdonell and Keith (Vedic Index, vol. i, p. 533) consider that when they appeared as human tribes, they were presumably thus designated in scorn. A science called Piśācha-veda or Piśācha-vidyā is known in the later Vedic period. (See Gopatha Brāhmaṇa, i, 1, 10, and Āśvalāyana Śrauta Sūtra, x, 7, 6.)

There is a form of marriage named paiéācha, after the Piśāchas, which consists of embracing a woman who is drugged, insane or asleep. This is mentioned by Manu as the last and most condemned form of marriage. It was, however, permissible to all castes except Brāhmans. (See Manu, Sacred Books of the East, Bühler, vol. xxv, pp. 79-81 and 83.)

Finally there are the Purāṇa legends to be considered. They state that the valley of Kashmir was once a lake. Siva drained off the water and it was peopled by the Prajāpati Kaśyapa. He had numerous wives, but three in particular, from whom were born the Nāgas, the Piśāchas, the Yakṣas and the Rākṣasas. Thus the relationship of these various demons is understood.

Both Buddhist and non-Buddhist literature continually refers to them synonymously, and in modern Kashmiri the word yachh, for yakṣa, has taken the place of the old piśācha.

There is also a rather similar legend in the Nīlamata, a legendary account of Kashmir dating (so Grierson says) from perhaps the sixth or seventh century. According to it Kaśyapa first peopled the dried valley of Kashmir only with the Nāgas. He then wished to introduce men, but the Nāgas objected. Kaśyapa cursed them, and for every six months of the year his other sons, the Piśāchas, who came from an island in the sand ocean (an oasis in Central Asia, probably Khōtan), dwelt there.

Many similar stories are found in the Dard country, north and west of Kashmir.

Yetālas are also closely related to the above demons. They are almost entirely confined to cemeteries and burning-grounds, where they specialise in animating dead bodies.

The twenty-five tales of a Vetāla are included in the Ocean of Story, where their nature is fully described.

Bhūta is really a generic name given to ghosts of many kinds. They are often synonymous with both Rākṣasas and Piśāchas. (See E. Arbman, Rudra, p. 165 et seq.)

The Bhūta proper is the spirit of a man who has met a violent death, in consequence of which it assumes great malignity against the living.

The three tests of recognising a Bhūta are: (1) it has no shadow; (2) it cannot stand burning turmeric; (3) it always speaks with a nasal twang. It plays a very minor part in the Ocean of Story, being mentioned only once.

Crooke (op. cit.9 vol. i, p. 234 et seq.) has given very full details of the modern Bhūta, its veneration and the numerous superstitious rites connected with it.

Dasyus (or Dāsas) was originally the name given to the aboriginal tribes of India who resisted the gradual advance of the Aryans from the west. Owing to the legends which naturally sprang up about the bloody battles with these early foes, they have been introduced into fiction as demons of terrible and hideous appearance and are classed with Rākṣasas and Piśāchas.

They are described as having a black skin, being snubnosed, god-hating, devoid of rites, addicted to strange vows, and so forth.

They are mentioned only once in the Ocean of Story, and then in company with Rākṣasas.

Kumbhāṇḍas and Kushmāṇḍas are also mentioned only once, and are merely a variety of demon, and of little importance.

The two words are probably synonymous, one being Sanskrit and the other Prakrit

Appendix II - Note on the use of Collyrium and Koḥl

The word collyrium has an interesting etymological history. It is a Latin word (κολλύριον, in Greek) meaning “a mass (or article) similar to the collyra-dough.” Collyra is a kind of pastry, round in shape, closely resembling vermicelli.

Thus collyrium came to mean

a pessary, suppository, etc., when used in a medical sense,

a liquid eye-wash, applied in a long thin line above the eye,

and koḥl, for beautifying the eyes.

The word collyrium is often used (as in our text) to mean koḥl, whereas its strict use in connection with the eye should be only in a medical sense. Koḥl is from the Arabic كحل, kuḥl, koḥl, which means a “stain,” from kaḥala, “to stain.” In English the word is applied in chemistry to any fine impalpable powder produced by trituration, or especially by sublimation, and by further extension to fluids of the idea of sublimation – an essence, quintessence, or spirit obtained by distillation or “rectification,” as alcohol of wine. Thus our own wTord “alcohol” really means “a thing (produced) by staining.” Koḥl consists of powdered antimony ore, stibnite, antimony trisulphide (πλατυόφθαλμον στίμμι), galena or lead ore.

The custom of applying koḥl to the eyes dates from the dawn of history and is still practised in some form or other in almost every race of the world. After shortly considering its use in India, it will be interesting to give some account of the custom in other countries – chiefly in ancient Egypt and the Moslem East.

From a study of the Ajaṇṭā cave paintings and the work of the Indian court artists of the various schools, it is at once noticeable how exaggerated are the eyes of the women. They are very large and stretch in almond shape almost to the ears. This is considered a great attraction, and the painting of the eye is as important as the application of henna to the hands and feet. The koḥl (surmā) is used both as a means of producing large and lustrous eyes and as a collyrium (anjana).

In ancient India the recipes for making various anjanas are strange and numerous. In the Suśrutci Saṃhitā of the first century either b.c. or a.d. (Bhiṣagratna’s trans., Calcutta) there are many, of which the following is an example: –

“Eight parts of Rasānjana (antimony) having the hue of a (full-blown) blue lotus flower, as well as one part each of (dead) copper, gold and silver, should be taken together and placed inside an earthen crucible. It should then be burnt by being covered with the burning charcoal of catechu or aémantaka wood, or in the fire of dried cakes of cow-dung and blown (with a blow-pipe till they would glow with a blood-red effulgence), after which the expressed juice (rasa) of cow-dung, cow’s urine, milk-curd, clarified butter, honey, oil, lard, marrow, infusion of the drugs of the sarva-gandhā group, grape juice, sugar-cane juice, the expressed juice of triplialā and the completely cooled decoctions of the drugs of the sārivādi and the utpalādi groups, should be separately sprinkled over it in succession alternately each time with the heating thereof. After that the preparation should be kept suspended in the air for a week, so as to be fully washed bv the rains. The compound should then be dried, pounded and mixed together with proportionate parts (quarter part) of powdered pearls, crystals, corals and kālanu sārivā. The compound thus prepared is a very good anjana and should be kept in a pure vessel made of ivory, crystal, vaidūrya, śankha (conch-shell), stone, gold, silver or of asand wood. It should then be purified (lit, worshipped) in the manner of the purification of the Sahasra-Pāka-Taila described before. It may then be prescribed even for a king. Applied along the eyelids as a collyrium, it enables a king to become favourite with his subjects and to continue invincible to the last day of his life free from ocular affections.”

In more recent days we find surmā used by both sexes of the Musulmāns of India. It is put on the inside of the eyelids with a stick called mikḥal. Surmā is variously powdered antimony, iron ore, galena, and Iceland spar from Kābul. The jars or toilet-boxes (surmā-dān) resemble those to be described later in modern Egypt.

The eyelashes and outer lids are stained, or rather smudged, with kājal or lamp-black, which is collected on a plate held over a lamp. The box where it is stored is called Kājalantī.

As black is one of the colours spirits fear, surmā and kājal are used as a guard against the evil eye at marriages., deaths, etc.

Herklots in his Qānūn-i-Islām (by Ja‘far Sharīf, with notes by Crooke, new edition, 1920) refers to a legend current in the Panjāb. It is said that a fakir from Kashmir

“came to Mount Karanglī in the Jhīlam district and turned it into gold. The people fearing that in time of war it would be plundered, by means of a spell turned the gold into antimony, which is now washed down by the rain from the mountain. It is said that if it is used for eight days it will restore the sight of those who have become blind by disease or by accident, but not of those born blind.”

One of the chief attractions of surmā, especially in hot countries, is the coolness it imparts to the eyes. It is this attribute, coupled with its beautifying effects, which makes it so popular in India among both Mohammedans and Hindus.

When obtained in the crude ore it is laboriously pounded in a stone mortar, the process sometimes taking over a week. If the family can afford it, a few drops of attar of roses is occasionally added, thus giving a pleasant perfume to the preparation.

The amount of antimony-sulphide produced in India is very small, the chief localities being the Jhelum and Kangra districts of the Panjāb; the Bellary, Cuddapah and Viza-gapatam districts of Madras; and the Chitaldroog and Kadur districts of Mysore.

The galena found in some of the above districts, particularly Jhelum, is sometimes sold in the Indian bazaars as surmā.

As we proceed westwards from India, we find everywhere that the practice of painting the eyes is a firmly established custom.

In Persia the preparation used for the eyes was known as tutia. Marco Polo, in describing the town of Cobinam, which has been identified as Kūh-Banān in Kermān, says that tutia is prepared there by putting a certain earth into a furnace over which is placed an iron grating. The smoke and moisture expelled from the earth adheres to the grating. This is carefully collected and is “a thing very good for the eyes.” In commenting upon this passage Yule says (Marco Polo, vol. i, p. 126) that Polo’s description closely resembles Galen’s account of Pompholyx and Spodos (see his De Simpl. Medic., p. ix, in Latin edition, Venice, 1576).

Writing about four hundred years later (1670) the Portuguese traveller Teixeira (Relaciones... de Persia, y de Harmuz. . .) also refers to the tutia of Kermān, and says the ore was kneaded with water and baked in crucibles in a potter’s kiln. The tutia was subsequently packed in boxes and sent for sale to Hormuz. The importation into India of moulded cakes of tutia from the Persian Gulf was mentioned by Milburn in 1813 (Oriental Commerce, vol. i, p. 139).

It is interesting to note that in The History of the Sung Dynasty an Arab junk-master brought to Canton in A.D. 990, and sent thence to the Chinese Emperor in Ho Nan, “one vitreous bottle of tutia.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quarterly Review, January 1904, p. 135.)

Writing in 1881 Gen. A. Houtum-Schindler (Joum. Roy. As. Soc., N.S., vol. xiii, p. 497) says that the term tutia is not now used in Kermān to denote a collyrium, being applied to numerous other minerals. “The lamp-black used as collyrium is always called Surmah. This at Kermān itself is the soot produced by the flame of wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat’s fat, upon earthenware saucers. In the high mountainous districts of the province, Kūbenān, Pārīz, and others, Surmah is the soot of the Gavan plant (Garcia’s goan). This plant, a species of Astragalus, is on those mountains very fat and succulent; from it also exudes the Tragacanth gum. The soot is used dry as an eye-powder, or, mixed with tallow, as an eye-salve. It is occasionally collected on iron gratings.” In Persia to-day surmah forms a very important part of a lady’s toilet. She uses it from early childhood, and the more she puts on the more she honours her husband and her guests. It is considered to serve the twofold purpose of beautifying the eyes and preventing ophthalmia. It is also applied in a long thick line right across both eyebrows.

In all Mohammedan countries the meeting eyebrows are looked upon as beautiful, while in India the opposite is the case. Morier in his immortal Hajji Baba of Ispahan tells us that when Hajji had become a promoter of matrimony, among the charms enumerated by Zeenab her most alluring were her “two eyebrows that looked like one.”

In his edition of 1897, Dr Wills gives an illustration on page 428 of the surmah and tattoo marks on the chin and forehead.

Sir Percy Sykes recently reminded me of a Persian say ing which shows the esteem in which surmah is held:

“The dust of a flock of sheep is surmah to the eyes of a hungry wolf.”

Before considering the custom in ancient and modern Egypt it will be interesting to say a word on its great antiquity.

Mr Campbell Thompson, one of our leading Assyriologists, tells me that it seems certainly to have been in use by the Sumerian women (5000 b.c.) and in after years by the Babylonians and Assyrians. In one of the historical texts koḥl (küḥla) is mentioned as among the tribute paid by Hezekiah to the conquering Sennacherib (700 B.C.).

Even at this early date it was used as a collyrium as well as a “make-up” for the eyes.

In ancient Egypt the custom of applying koḥl to the lashes, eyelids, the part immediately below the lower lashes, and the eyebrows dates from the earliest dynasties. It seems to have been of numerous varieties and colours. Sesqui-sulphuret of antimony, sulphide of lead, oxide of copper and black oxide of manganese are among the chief substances used in powdered form. Miniature marble mortars were used for pounding the mineral into powder. The Egyptian name for any such powder was mesṭem, while the act of applying the powder was called semṭet, and the part painted was semṭi. The mesṭem was kept in tubes made of alabaster, steatite, glass, ivory, bone, wood, etc. These were single, or in clusters of two, three, four or five. In many cases the single tube was formed by a hole being bored into a solid jar of alabaster, granite, faience, steatite or porphyry. Such jars had lids, edges and sometimes stands for them to rest on. The stick for applying the mesṭem was usually of the same materials as the jars. One end was slightly bulbous. It was this end which, after being moistened and dipped in the mesṭem, was used in the application on the eyelids and eyebrows. The tubes and jars, from three to six inches in height, were often of the most beautiful workmanship, as an inspection of the numerous specimens at the British Museum will show. Several have been reproduced in Wilkinson’s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, 3 vols., 1878 (vol. ii, p. 348). Some have a separate receptacle for the mesṭem stick, otherwise it remained in the bottle, after the manner of the small “drop” perfume bottles of to-day. Of particular interest are the inscriptions found on some of the boxes. Pierret (Die. d'Archæl. Egypt, p. 139) gives examples: “To lay on the lids or lashes”; “Good for the sight”; “To stop bleeding”; “Best stibium”; “To cause tears,” etc. One of the most interesting specimens of an inscribed koḥl- or stibium-holder is one which belonged to Lord Grenfell and is now in Case 316 of the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in Wigmore Street, London. It is made of a brown wood and consists of a cluster of five tubes, one in the centre and the others surrounding it.

The central cylinder holds the koḥl- stick. On one side is a full face of Bes, who says he

“does battle every day on behalf of the followers of nis lord, the Scribe Atef, renewing life.”

On the other side is the figure of an ape, Nephrit, who

“anoints the eyes of the deceased with mesṭem.”

Each of the four remaining tubes held a mesṭem of a different tint, with instruction as to when they were to be used:

“To be put on daily”;

“For hot, dry weather”;

“For use in winter”;

“For the spring.”

This interesting specimen was found in the temple of Queen Hatshepset at Deir el Bahari.

Thus the great importance of the use of koḥl in ancient Egypt is undoubted, for the inscriptions show that besides its use for purposes of adornment it was recognised to have medicinal properties and to act as a charm; the application was, moreover, regulated by seasonal changes. I have in my collection examples of Egyptian heavily koḥled eyes with suspension eyelets. The mystic “Eye of Osiris” was worn as a protection against magic, and was of as great necessity to the dead as to the living, as can be seen by the large numbers found in mummy-wrappings, etc. Full details on this branch of the subject will be found in Elworthy’s Evil Eye, 1895.

We now turn to the Old Testament, where we find several references to the practice of koḥling the eyes. The most famous is the reference to Jezebel, in 2 Kings ix, 30, where the correct translation of the Hebrew is, “she painted her eyes,” or “set her eyes in koḥl” and looked out of the window.

In Jeremiah iv, 30 we read:

“though thou rent-est thy eyes [not face] with painting, in vain shalt thou make thyself fair”;

and in Ezekiel xxiii, 40:

“and lo, they came: for whom thou didst wash thyself, paintedst thy eyes, and deckedst thyself with ornaments.”

The custom was, and still is, universal throughout Islam, and the koḥled eye has always been prominent in the poetry and tales of Egypt, Arabia and Persia. The koḥl (mirwad) is of many kinds, but is commonly composed of the smoke-black produced by burning a cheap variety of frankincense. Almond-shells are also used in the same manner. These two kinds have no medicinal value, but koḥl produced from the grey powder of antimony and lead ores is, as Burton discovered, a preventive of ophthalmia.

The origin of the use of powdered antimony for the eyes among Mohammedans is, that, when Allah showed himself to Moses on Sinai through the opening the size of a needle, the prophet fainted and the mount took fire: thereupon Allah said:

“Henceforth shalt thou and thy seed grind the earth of this mountain and apply it to your eyes.” (See Burton’s Nights, vol. i, p. 59.)

The powdered ores are often mixed with sarcocolla, long pepper, sugar-candy, the fine dust of a Venetian sequin, and sometimes with powdered pearls, as in India.

The mirwad is usually kept in a glass vessel called muk-ḥulah, and similar varieties are found as in ancient Egypt. (For illustrations see Lane’s Modern Egyptians, 5th edition, 1860, p. 37.) The mirwad is applied with a probe wetted in the mouth or with rose-water. Both eyelids are blackened, but no long line is drawn out at the corners towards the ears as was the custom in ancient Egypt.

It is common to see children in Egypt with blackened eyes. This is merely a charm against the evil eye, as black is one of the colours feared by evil spirits. Koḥl has entered into many proverbs, and a popular exaggeration for an expert thief is to say,

“he would take the very koḥl off your eyelids.”

Mohammedans of both sexes use antimony for the eyes, and Mohammed himself did not disdain its use, as well as dye for the beard and oil for the hair. (See my Selected Papers of Sir Richard Burton, 1923, p. 37.)

In his Arabia Deserta (vol. i, p. 237) Doughty speaks of the fondness of every Arabian man and woman, townsfolk and bedouins, to paint the whites of their eyes with koḥl.

In Morocco the custom enters largely into marriage-ceremonies, where in addition the lips are painted with walnut juice. (For numerous references see the index of Westermarck’s Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, 1914.)

In Central and Eastern Africa the Moslem natives apply koḥl to both outer lids by fixing it on with some greasy substance. (Burton, op. cit., i, 63.) I have in my collection little leather bags for holding koḥl from Zanzibar and koḥl- sticks of glass. Livingstone, in his Journal, says that the natives of Central Africa used powdered malachite as an eye paint.

In Europe koḥl was used by women in classical Greece and Rome. In his second Satire (85) Juvenal, in speaking of effeminate men who have copied the tricks of the women’s toilet, says:

“One with needle held oblique adds length to his eyebrows touched with moistened koḥl,

And raising his lids paints his quivering eyes.”

In modern days koḥl is in great demand among both the social and theatrical world throughout Europe. Although some Parisian “houses” still sell small flasks of powdered antimony, the usual forms are as an eyebrow-pencil, a black powder and a solidified block which is rubbed with a moistened brush and applied to the lashes, as described so clearly by Juvenal.

The composition of these cosmetics varies. Some are made by simply dissolving Chinese or Indian ink in a mixture of glycerine and water. In other cases the “black” is lampblack or fine carbon black.

The following is a recipe from Poucher’s Perfumes and Cosmetics. 1923: –

Ivory black, or vegetable black – 100 grm.

Tragacanth in powder – 15 grm.

Alcohol, 58 o.p. – 135 cub.cm

Orange-flower water – 750 cub. cm.

It is interesting to note the use of tragacanth gum> which, as we have already seen, appears in the Persian surmah. Directions for making the koḥl from the above ingredients are as follows: –

Place the alcohol in a bottle, add the tragacanth and shake until evenly distributed, pour in the orange-flower water and shake until a creamy mucilage is obtained. Rub down the pigment and gradually add this mucilage to it. Pass through muslin and transfer to bottles, which should be corked immediately.

The koḥl sold in paste form often consists of ivory black, soft yellow paraffin and a few drops of ionone (synthetic violet) or attar to give it a perfume.

 

Appendix III - On the Dohada, or Craving of the Pregnant Woman, as a Motif in Hindu Fiction

The scientific study and cataloguing of the numerous incidents which continually recur throughout the literature of a country has scarcely been commenced, much less the comparison of such motifs with similar ones in the folk-lore of other nations.

Professor Bloomfield of Chicago has, however, issued a number of papers treating of various traits or motifs which occur in Hindu fiction, but unfortunately neither he nor his friends who have helped by papers for his proposed Encyclopædia of Hindu Fiction have carried their inquiries outside the realms of Sanskrit. The papers are none the less of the utmost interest and value. One of them (Journ. Amer. Orient Soc., vol. lx, Part I, 1920, pp. 1-24) treats of “The Dohada or Craving of Pregnant Women.” With certain modifications I have used this as the chief source of the following note.

There are, however, certain points in which I beg to differ from Professor Bloomfield. For instance, the incident in the Ocean of Story seems clearly an example of dohada prompting a husband to shrewdness, and does not come under the heading of dohadas which injure the husband.

The craving or whim of a pregnant woman is an incident which to the Western mind appears merely as an intimate event in a woman’s life, any discussion of which should be confined to the pages of a medical treatise. Not so among the Hindus. It forms a distinct motif in folk-lore and is, moreover, one from which most unexpected situations arise.

The Hindu name given to such a longing is dohada. The word means “two - heartedness,” and is self-explanatory when we remember that the pregnant woman has two hearts and two wills in her body. Any wish which the woman may have is merely the will of the embryo asserting itself and causing the mother to ask for what it knows is necessary for its auspicious birth.

The dohada in Hindu literature forms a motif which is not only absolutely free from any suspicion of obscenity or grossness, but in some of its aspects is beautiful and highly poetical.

Let us take the poetical dohada first. It is not only human beings who have a dohada that the husband knows it is his bounden duty to satisfy. The vegetable kingdom also has its dohadas. Thus if a certain tree is known to blossom only after heavy rains heralded by thunder, its dohada is thunder, and until it is satisfied the pregnant tree cannot blossom.

More fanciful customs have arisen with regard to the dohadas: some must be touched by the feet of women; others must have wine sprinkled over them from the mouths of beauteous maidens. Hindu poetry abounds in such extravagant ideas. To give an example from the Pārśvanātha Charitra (vi, 796, 797):

“(Came spring) when the kuruvaka trees bloom, as they are embraced by young maids; when the aśoka trees burst into bloom, as they are struck by the feet of young women; when the bakula trees bloom, if sprayed with wine from the mouths of gazelle-eyed maidens; when the campaka trees burst, as they are sprinkled with perfumed water.”

Compare Pliny, Nat Hist., xvi, 242, where a noble Roman pours wine on a beautiful beech-tree in a sacred grove of Diana in the Alban hills. For the significance of this see Frazer, Golden Bough, vol. i, p. 40 ; cf. also vol. ii, pp. 28 and 29.

It is, however, the human and animal dohadas that enter so largely into Hindu fiction and serve some particular purpose in the narrative. Sometimes it is merely used as a start -motif for a story, but at other times it acts as a means of introducing some incident which, but for the strange longing of the woman, would have been quite out of place. Thus the water of life, the Garuḍa bird, magic chariots, etc., can be suddenly and unexpectedly introduced.

Then, again, a tale may be quite devoid of incidents until the dohada gives it a sudden jerk by creating a demand for the husband’s entrails, or some equally disturbing request. It is surprising to what varied use the dohada has been put and what an important part it plays in Hindu fiction.

Professor Bloomfield divides the use of the dohada motif under the following six headings: –

Dohada either directly injures the husband, or impels some act on his part which involves danger or contumely.

Dohada prompts the husband to deeds of heroism, superior skill, wisdom or shrewdness.

Dohada takes the form of pious acts or pious aspira tions.

Dohada is used as an ornamental incident, not in fluencing the main events of a story.

Dohada is feigned by the woman in order that she may accomplish some purpose, or satisfy some desire.

Dohada is obviated by tricking the woman into the belief that her desire is being fulfilled.

 

1. Dohada either directly injures the husband, or impels some act on his part which involves danger or contumely

Under this heading are classed those forms of dohada which injure.

It is seldom that the woman herself is injured as the result of her whim. There is, however, such a case in Parker, Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, vol. ii, p. 388 et seq. Here the disaster is brought about by her dohada being unsatisfied, and may consequently be regarded as a lesson to husbands on their moral duties. It is the husband who nearly always is the injured party. In Thusa-Jātaka (338) King Bimbisāra gives his wife blood from his right knee; in Schiefner and Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, p. 84, Queen Vāsavī wishes to eat flesh from her husband’s back. The king in order to satisfy his wife’s cravings conceals some raw meat under a cotton garment and so the queen is freed from her dohada. She has, however, a second dohada – this time for the king’s blood. Accordingly he opens various veins, and so satisfies the queen. The first of these dohadas more properly belongs to the sixth heading, as it shows trickery on the part of the husband, but the dohada was intended to injure the king. Compare also Tawney’s Kathākofa, p. 177, and Nirayāvaliyā Sutta, Warren, Amsterdam Academy, 1879. In Samarādityasarnkṣepa, ii, p. 356 et. seq., Queen Kusumāvalī wishes to eat her husband’s entrails. The difficulty is overcome by the king hiding the entrails of a hare in his clothes and bringing them out as his own. Matters, however, became complicated and finally the queen turns nun and the son slays his father.

Some of the best stories containing dohada motifs are animal stories. In Suvaṇṇakákkaṭa - Jātáka (No. 389, Cambridge edition, vol. iii, p. 185) the longing of a she-crow for a Brāhman’s eyes causes not only her husband’s death, but also that of her friend, the cobra.

In the “Story of the Couple of Parrots” (Tawney’s Kathākofa, p. 42 et seq. (the hen-parrot longs for heads of rice from the king’s rice-field. This is procured by the loving husband till the depredation is noticed. Snares are laid and the bird is taken before the king. The hen-parrot begs his life and, after the usual interloped stories, the couple are set at liberty, with leave to have unlimited rice. To show her satisfaction at having her doliada satisfied the hen-parrot promptly lays two eggs!

Compare with the above Supatta-Jātaka (No. 292, Cambridge edition, vol. ii, p. 295).

In Jacobi’s Ausgewählte Erzāhlungen in Māhārāṣṭrl, p. 34, line 25 et seq., Queen Paumavaī longs to ride through the parks and groves on an elephant’s back. The dutiful king accompanies her. The elephant gallops out of the path to the woods. The king and queen decide to catch hold of the branches of a fig-tree and so escape, but the queen fails to do this and is carried off by the elephant.

The best of these dohada stories can be treated under this first heading, as it deals with the intended harm to a third party caused by the dohada of the female which the husband, usually reluctantly, attempts to satisfy. The story is Buddhist in origin and appears in two distinct variants, both of which (as Bloomfield says) are distinguished by inventiveness and perfect Hindu setting.

It originally occurs as Suṃsumāra-J ātaka (No. 208, Cambridge edition, vol. ii, p. 110), with a shorter form as Vānara-Jātaka (No. 342, op. cit.9 vol. iii, p. 87).

Briefly, the story is that of a sturdy monkey who lived by a certain curve of the Ganges. A crocodile’s mate conceives a longing to eat its heart. Accordingly the crocodile approaches the monkey with a story about the fine fruits on the other side of the river, and offers to convey him across on his back. All is arranged, but when half-way across the crocodile plunges the monkey into the water and explains the action by telling him of his wife’s whim.

“Friend,” said the monkey, “it is nice of you to tell me. Why, if our hearts were inside us when we go jumping among the tree-tops, they would be all knocked to pieces!”

“Well, where do you keep them?” asked the other.

The monkey points to a fig-tree laden with ripe fruit. “There are our hearts hanging on that tree.”

Accordingly he is taken back to fetch his heart, and so escapes.

Variants of this story are found on p. 110 of vol. ii (op. cit., supp.). In the Ocean of Story it appears as the “Story of the Monkey and the Porpoise,” in Chapter LXIII, where I shall add a further note.

The other variant of this story appears as the Vānarinda - Jātaka (No. 57, Cambridge edition, vol. i, pp. 142-143), of which Bloomfield gives numerous similar tales under the “Cave-Call Motif ” heading (Journ. Amer. Orient Soc., vol. xxxvi, June 1916, p. 59). It starts as the above story, except that the monkey gets his food from an island in the river, which he reaches by using a large rock as a stepping-stone. The crocodile, in order to get the monkey’s heart for his mate, lies flat on the rock in the dark of the evening. The monkey, however, when about to return from the island, noticing that it seems a bit larger than usual, calls out “Hi! Rock!” repeatedly. As no answer comes he continues: “How comes it, friend rock, that you won’t answer me to-day?” At this the crocodile thinks the rock is accustomed to answer, so he answers for it, and thus not only betrays his presence, but tells his intentions. The monkey concedes, and tells the crocodile to open his jaws and he’ll jump in. But (according to the story) the eyes of a crocodile shut when he opens his jaws. The monkey realises this and, using his enemy’s back as a stepping-stone, reaches his own home in safety.

 

2. Dohada prompts the husband to deeds of heroism, superior skill, wisdom or shrewdness

It often happens that in order to satisfy his wife’s dohada the husband resorts to clever tricks or heroic deeds. Thus in Bhadda-Sāla-Jātaka (No. 465, Cambridge edition, vol. iv, pp. 91-98) the king’s commander-in-chief was a man named Bandhula, whose wTife Mallikā had a dohada to bathe in and drink the water of the sacred tank in Vesālī city. The tank was closely guarded and covered with a strong wire net, but Bandhula heroically scatters the guards, breaks the net and plunges with his wife into the sacred tank, where after bathing and drinking they jump into their chariot and go back whence they had come. They are, however, pursued by five hundred men in chariots. Bandhula, in no way perturbed, asks Mallikā to tell him when all the five hundred men are in one straight line. She does so, and holds the reins while the king speeds a shaft which pierces the bodies of all the five hundred men “in the place where the girdle is fastened.”

Then Bandhula shouts to them to stop as they are all dead men. They refuse to believe this. “Loose the girdle of the first man,” shouts Bandhula. They do so and he falls dead – and so with all the five hundred. This great feat had its full effect, for Mallikā bore him twin sons sixteen times in succession!

In the Chavaka-Jātaka (No. 309, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 18) the husband has to obtain a mango from the king’s garden, and only saves himself by his great power of oratory and knowledge of the law. Compare with this Parker’s Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, vol. i, p. 362 et seq. In Dabbhapuppha-Jātaka (No. 400, op. cit., vol. iii, p. 205) a jackal’s mate longs to eat fresh rohita fish. The husband finds two otters quarrelling over such a fish. He is invited to arbitrate in their dispute, and does so by giving the head piece to one, the tail piece to the other and taking the centre as his fee. Cf. Schiefner and Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, p. 332 et seq.

 

3. Dohada takes the form of pious acts or pious aspirations

In some cases instead of dohada prompting the wife to cruel or extravagant acts it works in the very opposite direction and produces longings to do pious acts or visit some famous hermitage or shrine, etc. This form of the motif appears almost entirely in Buddhist and Jaina edificatory texts. Accordingly in Dhammapada Commentary (v, 156, and vi, 5b32) the mother longs to entertain monks; in the “Story of Nami,” Jacobi, Ausgewählte Erzählungen in Māhārāṣṭrī (p. 41, line 25 et seq.), the longing is to reverence the Jinas and the Sages, and to continually hear the teachings of the titthayaras.

Again in the Kathākoça (Tawney, p. 19) Madanarekhā has a longing to bestow a gift for the purpose of divine worship; on page 53 Queen Śrutimatī has a dohada to worship the gods in the holy place on the Aṣṭāpada mountain; and on page 64 the pregnant Queen Jayā felt a desire to worship gods and holy men, and to give gifts to the poor and wretched. In the “Dumb Cripple” story in Schiefner and Ralston’s Tibetan Tales, p. 247, Queen Brahmavatī begs her husband to order presents to be given away at all the gates of the city.

 

4. Dohada is used as an ornamental incident, not influencing the main events of a story

In certain cases the dohada motif is subordinate to the main events of a story, being in itself merely an ornamental and attractive incident introduced to give impetus to the narrative. In religious Sanskrit literature this use of dohada is scarce, but it enters largely into secular works, such as the Ocean of Story. Thus in Chapter XXII Vāsavadattā wishes for stories of great magicians and to fly in a magic chariot. Similarly in Chapter XXXV Queen Alankāraprabhā roams about the sky in a magic chariot in the shape of a beautiful lotus, “since her pregnant longing assumed that form.”

 

5. Dohada is feigned by the woman in order that she may accomplish some purpose, or satisfy some desire

The idea of pretending to have a certain dohada in order to get a husband out of the way is common in Indian stories. It is frequent in the Jātakäs (see Nos. 159, 491, 501, 534, 545). In the Nigrodha-Jātaka (No. 445, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 22-27) the trick dohada is used, not to send the husband away on some dangerous and nearly impossible task, but to please her husband by making him believe she is pregnant. As she is barren she is treated disrespectfully by her husband’s relations. In her trouble she consults her old nurse, who teaches her the behaviour of pregnant women and what kind of strange things she must long for. By clever working all goes well, and as part of her pretended dohada she wanders into a wood, where, as luck will have it, she finds a babe abandoned by some passing caravan.

See also Jülg’s Kalmükische Märchen, p. 31, where a trick to eat the heart of a stepson fails. The most extraordinary story of a feigned dohada is “The Nikini Story” in Parker’s Village Folk-Tales of Ceylon, vol. i, p. 284 et seq. Here the woman has a weakness for continually remarrying. This she does by pretending dohada for some object so hard to obtain that in the effort to satisfy her the husband always dies. The first whim is for some stars from the sky, the second for a bed of sand from the bottom of the sea, the third for Nikini. After long and weary wandering the husband is told that his wife must have a lover and merely wanted him to get killed. By a supposed magical cage they finally get into the Nikini man’s house, who proves to be his wife’s paramour. The husband, hidden in the cage, leaps out and beats the Nikini to death.

 

6. Dohada is obviated by tricking the woman into the belief that her desire is being fulfilled

An excellent example of this form of dohada is that in our present text, when Queen Mṛgāvatī thinks she is bathing in a bath of blood, whereas in reality it is water dyed by the juice of lac and other red extracts.

In Pariéishtaparvan (viii, 225 et seq.) the chief’s daughter wishes to drink the moon. Accordingly a shed is constructed the thatch of which has an opening. At night a bowl of milk is placed on the floor so that the ray of moonlight falls directly on it. The girl is told to drink, and as she drinks a man posted on the roof gradually covers the hole in the thatch, so she is convinced she has drunk the moon. Bloomfield gives a number of references to works citing tricks played by the moon and other things reflected in water, milk, etc. (op. cit., p. 24). He does not, however, refer to the most interesting side of the question – the extent to which such ideas are actually embedded in the customs of the Hindus. “The Doctrine of Lunar Sympathy” has been discussed by Frazer (Golden Bough, Adonis, Attis and Osiris, vol. ii, chap. ix, pp. 140-150). The belief that the moon has a sympathetic influence over vegetation is well known throughout literature, and on the same principle the custom of drinking the moon is found in different parts of India. See Crooke’s- Folk-Lore of Northern India, vol. i, pp. 14-15.

Tricks used for satisfying dohadas, by the husband pretending he is giving his wife his own entrails, etc., have already been mentioned under section 1.

In conclusion I would mention a curious case of dohada from Java, quoted by Frazer (Golden Bough, vol. ii, p. 23). A woman sometimes craves for a certain pungent fruit usually only eaten by pigs. The husband, on approaching the plant, pretends to be a pig and grunts loudly, so that the plant, taking him for a pig, will mitigate the flavour of the fruit.

 

Appendix IV - Sacred Prostitution

The story of Rūpiṇikā (p. 138 et seq.) is laid in “a city named Mathurā, the birthplace of Kṛṣṇa.” The lady herself is described as a courtesan who at the time of worship went into the temple to perform her duty.

From this passage it is quite clear that Rūpiṇikā combined the professions of prostitution and temple servant, which latter consisted chiefly in dancing, fanning the idol and keeping the temple clean. She was, in fact, a dēva-dāsī, or “handmaid of the god.” As we shall see in the course of this appendix, the name applied to these so-called “sacred women” varied at different times and in different parts of India.

Mathurā is the modern Muttra, situated on the right bank of the Jumna, thirty miles above Agra. From at least 300 B.C. (when Megasthenes wrote) it had been sacred to Kṛṣṇa, and we hear from reliable Chinese travellers that in A.D. 400 and 650 it was an important centre of Buddhism and at a later date again became specially associated with the worship of Kṛṣṇa, owing to the fact that Mathurā was the scene of the adventures and miracles of his childhood as described in the Viṣṇu Purāṇa. Thus Mathurā has always been one of the most sacred spots in Hindu mythology. [1]

It has suffered from the Mohammedan invaders more than any city of Northern India, or nearly so, for it was first of all sacked in 1017-1018 by the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni, and again in 1500 by Sikander Lodi, in 1636 by Ṣāh Jahān, in 1669-1670 by Aurangzēb, by whose commands the magnificent temple of Këśavadēva was levelled to the ground, and by Atimad Ṣāh in 1756. By this time every temple, image and shrine had been destroyed and a large part of the population had embraced Mohammedanism. The history of Mathurā is typical of what has occurred in many cities of Northern India, and I consider it is an important factor in the explanation of why sacred prostitution is much more developed in Southern India.

At the date when Somadeva wrote the city must have recovered from its first sacking and the religious life have been assuming its normal course. It was after our author’s day that the systematic and thorough destruction began, and in consequence we hear less about Hindu temples of Northern India.

In view of the anthropological importance of the connection of religion and prostitution, and of the interesting ritual, customs and ceremonies which it embodies, I shall endeavour to lay before my readers what data I have been able to collect, with a few suggestions as to the possible explanation of the curious institution of the dēva-dāsīs.

Ancient India

Owing to the lack of early historical evidence it is impossible to say to what extent sacred prostitution existed in ancient India.

Even in modern times it is often hard to differentiate between secular and sacred prostitution, while, through the clouds of myth and mystery which cover the dawn of Indian history, any distinction must be looked upon as little more than conjecture. In common with so many other parts of the world secular prostitution in India dates from the earliest times and is mentioned in the Ṛg-Veda, where terms meaning “harlot,” “son of a maiden,” “son of an unmarried girl,” etc., occur. In the Vājasaneyi Saṃhitā it seems to be recognised as a profession, [2] while in the law-books the prostitute is regarded with disfavour. (Manu, ix, 259 ; iv, 209, 211, 219, 220 ; v, 90.) In the Buddhist age Brāhmans were forbidden to be present at displays of dancing or music, owing to their inseparable connection with prostitution; yet on the other hand we see in the Jātakas (tales of the previous births of the Buddha) that prostitutes were not only tolerated, but held in a certain amount of respect.[3]

We also hear of the great wealth of some of the women and the valuable gifts made to the temples, which reminds us of similar donations among the ἑταῖραι of ancient Greece. In his article on “Indian Prostitution” in Hastings’ Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (vol. x, p. 407) W. Crooke quotes Somadeva as saying that prostitutes are occasionally of noble character and in some cases acquire enormous wealth. He also gives other references apart from those already quoted.

As literary historical evidence on the subject under discussion is so scarce, the discovery in 1905 of a work on Hindu polity was of the utmost importance. It is known as the Arthaśāstra, and gives full details of the social, administrative, fiscal and land systems of the Maurya age. The author is Kauṭilya (Chāṇakya, or Viṣṇugupta), who wrote about 300 B.C. [4] Book II, chap. xxvii, deals with the duties of the superintendent of prostitutes {gaṇikās), who held a highly paid post at the Court of Chandragupta. The women enjoyed a privileged position and held the royal umbrella, fan and golden pitcher. They were, however, subject to strict official control, and Kauṭilya gives a long list of penalties for any breach of the regulations – for instance, a gaṇikā who refused her favours to anyone whom the king might choose received a thousand lashes with a whip or else had to pay five thousand paṇas. A further clause states that all the rules prescribed for the gaṇikās are also to apply to dancers, actors, singers, musicians, pimps, etc. There is no mention of temples, but the fact that the dancer, musician and prostitute are all put on the same basis is important in attempting to trace the history of sacred prostitution.

The corruption of the Court at this period is partly shown by the fact that every gaṇikā had to pay to the government each month the amount of two days’ earnings. They were, moreover, sometimes used as secret service agents and acquired position and wealth.

We shall see later that a similar state of affairs existed at the great city of Vijayanagar in the sixteenth century.

The Christian Era (First Eleven Centuries)

In the first eleven centuries of the Christian era more attention seems to have been paid to what we may politely call the Science of Erotics, and many such works were written. [5] Very few, however, are now extant, and it is of interest to note that those which do exist usually mention numerous other similar writings from which they have largely drawn. In most cases they deal in all seriousness with some quite trivial point (such as the best way for a courtesan to rid herself of a lover whose wealth is nearly spent) by listing the various opinions of previous writers and then giving their own opinion as the most acceptable.

It was a method used in 300 b.c. by Kauṭilya, and again by Vātsyāyana, who was the earliest and most important erotic writer of the Christian era. His work, the Kāma Sūtra, dates from about a.d. 250, and has been translated into most European languages, including English. [6] Although Vātsyāyana devotes a whole book (six chapters) to courtesans, there is no direct reference to sacred prostitution. He mentions, however, dancing, singing and the playing of musical instruments as among the chief requirements not only for a prostitute, but also for any married woman wishing to keep her husband’s affections. He divides prostitutes into nine classes, [7] the most honourable of which is the gaṇikā, which, as we have already seen, was the name used by Kauṭilya. “Such a woman,” says Vātsyāyana, “will always be rewarded by kings and praised by gifted persons, and her connection will be sought by many people.”

The next work of importance was by Daṇḍin, who ranks among the greatest poets of India. He flourished in the sixth century. Two of his works give a vivid, though perhaps rather exaggerated, picture of the luxury and depravity of his day. The first is the Baśa Kumāra Charitct, [8] or Adventures of the Ten Princes, while the second (whose authorship is doubtful, though sometimes ascribed to Daṇḍin) is the Mṛchchhakatika, [9] or Clay Cart, which treats of the courtship and marriage of a poor Brāhman and a wealthy and generous prostitute. Both works are important in our discussion as giving some idea of the social condition of middle and low class life of the sixth century.

A certain passage in the Daéa Kumāra Charita is of special interest as showing how all female accomplishments were to be found in the courtesan, whose education and conversational powers would certainly be more attractive than the uneducated and paltry household chatter of the wife.

The story goes that a famous dancer, who was, of course, also a prostitute, suddenly pretended to feel the desire to become a devotee. She accordingly went to the abode of an ascetic to carry out her purpose.

Soon, however, her mother follows to dissuade her from her intention, and addresses the holy man as follows: –

“Worthy sir, this daughter of mine would make it appear that I am to blame, but, indeed, I have done my duty, and have carefully prepared her for that profession for which by birth she was intended. From earliest childhood I have bestowed the greatest care upon her, doing everything in my power to promote her health and beauty. As soon as she was old enough I had her carefully instructed in the arts of dancing, acting, playing on musical instruments, singing, painting, preparing perfumes and flowers, in writing and conversation, and even to some extent in grammar, logic and philosophy. She was taught to play various games with skill and dexterity, how to dress well, and show herself off to the greatest advantage in public; I hired persons to go about praising her skill and her beauty, and to applaud her when she performed in public, and I did many other things to promote her success and to secure for her liberal remuneration; yet after all the time, trouble and money which I have spent upon her, just when I was beginning to reap the fruit of my labours, the ungrateful girl has fallen in love with a stranger, a young Brāhman, without property, and wishes to marry him and give up her profession, notwithstanding all my entreaties and representations of the poverty and distress to which all her family will be reduced, if she persists in her purpose; and because I oppose this marriage she declares that she will renounce the world and become a devotee.” [10]

It transpires in the course of the tale that the dancing-girl stays with the ascetic, who falls madly in love with her. She leads him to her home and finally to the palace of the king, where he learns to his great consternation that the whole thing was merely the result of a wager between two court beauties. The participation of the king in the joke and his rewarding the winner clearly shows the importance of the courtesan in this age.

Passing on to the eighth century we have Dāmodara-gupta’s Kuṭṭanīmatam, which resembles Vātsyāyana’s Kāma Sūtra. Besides a German translation, it has also been translated into French. [11]

This was followed in the tenth or eleventh centuries by Kalyāna Malla’s Ananga-Ranga, which is a general guide to ars amoris indica. It is very well known in India and has been translated into numerous European languages. [12]

The only other work worthy of mention is Kṣemendra’s Samayamātṛkā. It can best be described as a guide or handbook for the courtesan, but its chief value lies in the fact that the author was a contemporary of Somadeva. His work has been translated into German [13] and French. [14]

The connection between Kṣemendra and Somadeva is strengthened by the fact that, besides being contemporary Kashmirian court poets, they both wrote a great collection of stories from a common source – the Bṛhat-Kathā. Soma-deva’s collection was the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, while that by Kṣemendra was the Bṛhat-Kathā-Mañjarī. The latter work was, however, only a third as long as the former and cannot compare in any way with the Ocean of Story as regards its style, metrical skill and masterly arrangement and handling of the stories. I shall have more to say about Kṣemendra in Vol. X of the present work.

It is practically impossible to say to what extent the above-mentioned works have bearing on sacred prostitution. I have merely endeavoured to acquaint the reader with such literature as exists dealing with the social life of women of these early times. It seems, however, quite safe to assert that from Buddhist times onwards the prostitute, especially the more learned classes, was held in a certain amount of esteem. She was an important factor in the palace and often acquired great wealth. Dancing and singing were among her accomplishments, but to what extent she was connected with temples we are not told. Soon after the twelfth century historical and literary evidence increases and it becomes possible to examine our data under definite geographical headings. Although Southern India yields by far the most material for our discussion, we will begin in the north, and work slowly southwards.

 

Northern India

In the introductory remarks to this appendix it has been shown to what extent Mathurā suffered from Mohammedan invasion. The whole of Northern India was similarly affected, and the bloody battles, enforced slavery, terrible tortures and complete destruction of Hindu temples and other public buildings during the Mohammedan Sultanate of Delhi (1175-1340) clearly show that the great upheavals so caused made any continual religious practices of the Hindus an impossibility. By 1340 the Sultanate of Delhi was breaking up and in the south Vijayanagar was already a powerful kingdom. I shall have more to say about Vijayanagar in the section on Southern India.

The destruction of the Hindu temples was continued with unabated zeal in the Mogul Empire. In the reign of Akbar (1556-1605) we are told by his most intimate friend, Abu-1 Fazl, [15] that the prostitutes of the realm (who had collected at the capital, and could scarcely be counted, so large was their number) had a separate quarter of the town assigned to them, which was called Shaiṭānpūrah, or Devilsville. A Dāroghah (superintendent) and a clerk were also appointed for it, who registered the names of such as went to prostitutes, or wanted to take some of them to their houses. People might indulge in such connections provided the toll-collectors heard of it. But, without permission, no one was allowed to take dancing-girls to his house.

The celebrated musician Tānsen, who was attached to Akbar’s Court, became a kind of patron saint of dancing-girls. It is believed that chewing the leaves of the tree above Tānsen’s grave at Gwālior imparts a wonderful melody to the voice, and consequently girls make pilgrimages there for that purpose. [16]

In the reigns of the next two Emperors, Jahāngīr (1605-1627) and Ṣāh Jahān (1628-1658), the luxury, ostentation, extravagance and depravity increased, [17] and it was not till the reign of Aurangzëb (1659-1707) that any attempt was made to check the ruthless waste which was slowly draining the resources of the country. Aurangzëb was a Mohammedan Puritan who lived and died an ascetic. During his long reign thousands of Hindu temples were demolished by his orders, and every effort was made to wipe out prostitution and everything pertaining thereto.

Khāfī Khān, [18] the historian, tells rather a pathetic story. It appears that Aurangzēb issued public proclamations prohibiting singing and dancing, and at the same time ordered all the dancing-girls to marry or be banished from the kingdom. They did not, however, submit to this treatment without a protest. One Friday as the Emperor was going to the mosque (another account says he was sitting at his audience window) he suddenly saw about a thousand women carrying over twenty highly ornamented biers. Their piercing cries and lamentations filled the air. The Emperor, surprised at such a display of grief, asked the cause of so great sorrow. He was told that Music, the mother of the dancing-girls, was now dead, and they were burying her. “Bury her deep,” cried the unmoved Emperor; “she must never rise again.”

After the death of Aurangzēb there followed an anarchical period which lasted till the advent of the British. During this time the standard of morality among the princes and public men sank lower and lower. Their lives were vicious and cruel in the extreme, and their gross sensuality naturally affected their courts and, through them, the populace. Prostitution had increased to huge dimensions, and appears to have been entirely secular. Thus we see how, partly owing to foreign conquest and partly to the general spread of immorality, the “religious” element in the temple dancers dropped out and they became ordinary prostitutes, who danced when occasion demanded. They would naturally be called upon if any dancing was wanted for a wedding feast or other private entertainment, for dancing and prostitution had been inseparable in India from the earliest times.

In modern accounts of the tribes and castes of Northern India (which are few enough) we find, therefore, practically no mention of temples or sacred prostitution.

Certain castes such as the ṭawāif and gandharb consist entirely of dancers, singers and prostitutes, but their sub-castes are so numerous that it is quite impossible to distinguish or describe them by any definite principle. Details of the ṭawāif and similar castes were given by Crooke [19] in 1896, and when writing on the same subject in 1918 [20] he apparently had nothing further to add. The following details are taken from his former work.

The term ṭawāif is a general one, but is chiefly used for Mohammedan girls, while the Hindu branch is usually called pātar, pātur, pāturiyā (from the Sanskrit pātra, an actor). When they are nubile, the pātar girls marry a pīpal tree and then commence their career of prostitution. One of the numerous sub-castes is known as rājkanya, which appears to be the only one whose members actually dance in the Hindu temples. Prostitution is said to be rare among them. The pātars have Kṛṣṇa as their personal god and Siva, in the form of Mahādēva, as their guardian deity. Among the ṭawāifs the rites are interesting. The girl is taught to dance and sing when about seven or eight years old. At the commencement of her training sweets are offered at a mosque and then distributed among Mohammedan faqlrs. At the first lesson the master receives a present of sweetmeats besides his pay. When the girl reaches puberty and her breasts begin to develop the rite of angiya, or “the assumption of the bodice,” is performed. Certain of the brethren are feasted and the girl is ready for her first paramour. After the price is fixed she goes to him, which rite is known as sir dhankāi, or “the covering of the head.” When she returns after the first visit, the brethren are again given sweetmeats, after which follows the rite of missi, or “blackening of the teeth.” She is dressed like a bride and paraded through the streets, afterwards attending a party with singing and dancing. The teeth cannot be stained until this feast is held, but Crooke says that at Lucknow the rule was relaxed. After the rite of missi the girl ceases to wear the nose-ring, and hence the ceremony is sometimes known as nathnī utārnā, or “the taking-off of the nose-ring.”

Somewhat similar ceremonies exist among the gandharbs, or gandharvs, who take their name from the heavenly musicians who attend the gods at Indra’s Court. In Northern India they are found only in Benares, Allahābād and Ghāzi-pur. They are Hindus of the Vaiṣṇava sect. Gaṇeśa is the patron of the dancing-girls since he is regarded by them as the author of music. They offer him wreaths of flowers and a sweetmeat made of sesamum and sugar every Wednesday. There are also certain gypsy tribes, such as the beḍiyās and naṭs, who are dancers, acrobats and prostitutes. They are divided into a large number of clans whose occupation is, nevertheless, the same. As they have no connection with temple worship, further details here would be superfluous. They have been fully described by B. R. Mitra [21] and W. Crooke. [22]

 

Central India

As the ancient kingdoms of India were confined either to the North or South, early travellers were naturally drawn to the most important cities, and tell us but little of Central India, especially as regards the religious practices and social conditions of the towns. The earliest direct reference to the dancing-girls of Central India which I can find is made by the Chinese traveller Chau Ju-Kwa in his work, Chu-fan-cM, dealing with the Chinese and Arab trade of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. [23] Speaking of Guzerat (p. 92) he mentions

“four thousand Buddhist temple buildings, in which live over twenty thousand dancing-girls who sing twice daily while offering food to the Buddha (i.e. the idols) and while offering flowers.”

He also speaks of similar customs in Cambodia (p. 53). They are here called a-nan, derived from the Sanskrit word ānanda, meaning “joy” or “happiness.” [24]

We hear little more on the subject till the seventeenth century, when the French traveller Jean Baptiste Tavernier [25] made his second journey to the East (1638-1643). In describing Golconda (five miles west of the modern city of Hyderabad) he says there are over 20,000 public women entered in the Daroglia’s [sic] register. They danced before the king every Friday. In the evenings they stood before the doors of their houses and as soon as they lighted a lamp or candle all the drinking-places were opened. No tax was levied on the women, for they were looked upon as the chief cause of the large consumption of tari, which was a Government monopoly. No mention is made of the women dancing in the temples, but from the evidence of other writers it seems very probable they did this in their spare time!

We shall return to Hyderabad (Nizam’s dominions) later when giving the most recent information, but we now pass on to the east coast and examine the evidence given by W. Ward, the Baptist missionary, who wrote at the beginning of the nineteenth century. [26]

He is speaking of the temple of Jagannātha (usually called Puri), in Orissa.

“It is a well-authenticated fact,” he says, “that at this place a number of females of infamous character are employed to dance and sing before the god. They live in separate houses, not in the temple. Persons going to see Jugünnat’hu [sic] are often guilty of criminal actions with these females.”

Then in a note he adds:

“The officiating Brāhmans there continually live in adulterous connection with them.”

Puri is to-day one of the most sacred spots in India. The name Juggernaut, the anglicised corruption of Jagannātha (Lord of the World), is that given to the form of Viṣṇu worshipped there. The legend of the sacred blue-stone image, details of the famous Car Festival and the truth about the suicides under its great wooden wheels have been told by Hunter. [27] The present temple is built in the shape of a pyramid, and is surmounted with the mystic wheel and flag of Viṣṇu. The annual rent-roll of the temple was put at no less than £68,000. Since Ward’s days little has been written on the dēva-dāsī of Central India. Anything of importance was reproduced by R. V. Russell in his work on the tribes and castes of the Central Provinces. [28]

He says:

“When a dancing-girl attains adolescence, her mother makes a bargain with some rich man to be her first consort. Oil and turmeric are rubbed on her body for five days as in the case of a bride. A feast is given to the caste and the girl is married to a dagger, walking seven times round the sacred post with it. Her human consort then marks her forehead with vermilion and covers her head with her head-cloth seven times. In the evening she goes to live with him for as long as he likes to maintain her, and afterwards takes up the practice of her profession. In this case it is necessary that the man should be an outsider and not a member of the kasbi caste, because the quasi-marriage is the formal commencement on the part of the woman of her hereditary trade.... In the fifth or seventh month of the first pregnancy of a kasbi woman 108 [29] fried wafers of flour and sugar, known as gūjahu, are prepared, and are eaten by her as well as distributed to friends and relatives who are invited to the house. After this they, in return, prepare similar wafers and send them to the pregnant woman. Some little time before the birth the mother washes her head with gram flour, puts on new clothes, and jewels, and invites all her friends to the house, feasting them with rice boiled in milk, cakes and sweetmeats.”

The term kasbi, derived from the Arabic kasab= prostitution, denotes rather a profession than a caste. The term is only used for Hindus, as is also gāyan. The Mohammedan dancing-girls are known, as in Northern India, by the name of ṭawāif.

In Bengal this class of women become so-called religious mendicants, who join the Vaiṣṇavī or Bairāgī community. They wander about the country, and, under the cloak of religion, carry on a large trade in kidnapping. They are notoriously licentious, and infanticide is apparently common. [30]

The following description of the dress and dancing of the better class of kasbi women is given by Russell. [31]

They

“are conspicuous by their wealth of jewellery and their shoes of patent leather or other good material. Women of other castes do not commonly wear shoes in the streets. The kasbis are always well and completely clothed, and it has been noticed elsewhere that the Indian courtesan is more modestly dressed than most women. No doubt in this matter she knows her business. A well-to-do dancing-girl has a dress of coloured muslin or gauze trimmed with tinsel lace, with a short waist, long straight sleeves, and skirts which reach a little below the knee, a shawl falling from the head over the shoulders and wrapped round the body, and a pair of tight satin trousers, reaching to the ankles. The feet are bare, and strings of small bells are tied round them. They usually dance and sing to the accompaniment of the tabla, sārangi and majīra. The tabla or drum is made of two half-bowls – one brass or clay for the bass, and the other of wood for the treble. They are covered with goat-skin and played together. The sārangi is a fiddle. The majīra (cymbals) consist of two metallic cups slung together and used for beating time. Before a dancing-girl begins her performance she often invokes the aid of Sārasvati, the Goddess of Music. She then pulls her ear as a sign of remembrance of Tānsen, India’s greatest musician, and a confession to his spirit of the imperfection of her own sense of music. The movements of the feet are accompanied by a continual opening and closing of henna-dyed hands; and at intervals the girl kneels at the feet of one or other of the audience. On the festival of Basant Panchmi, or the commencement of spring, these girls worship their dancing-dress and musical instruments with offerings of rice, flowers and a cocoanut.”

Proceeding southwards we find that in Hyderabad (Nizam’s dominions) the usual term used for Telugu dancing-girls is bogam, although several others, including those with which we are already acquainted, are found. The bogams are divided into two classes, according as to whether they are Hindus or Mohammedans. If they are the former, the titles sāni or nāyaka are attached to their names; if the latter, they are called jān or nāyakan. Siraj Ul Hassan [32] describes them as having been originally attached to the temples of Siva and Viṣṇu as “servants of the gods,” most of whom now earn their living by dancing, singing and prostitution. The initiation ceremonies of a bogam sāni include the marriage of the girl to an idol of Kṛṣṇa, and those of a bogam jān to a dagger. In the former case a marriage-booth of sixteen pillars is put up at the girl’s house, whither the idol is brought on an auspicious day.

“The girl is made to stand before the idol as if it were the bridegroom, a curtain is held between them and the officiating Brāhman, reciting the Mangalashtaka, or marriage stanzas, weds them in the orthodox fashion. The ceremonies that follow correspond in every particular to those of a Kapu or Munnur marriage. On the Nagveli day the girl is seated by the side of the idol and made to offer puja to Gaurl, the consort of Siva. Betel leaves, areca nuts and kunkum (red powder) are distributed to the assembly of dancing-girls, who sing songs, and, after blessing the bride, retire to their houses.”

In the case of a bogam jān when a girl is married to a dagger the ceremony resembles that above described, with the addition that the rite of missi is also performed. It includes not only the blackening of the teeth, as among the ṭawāif of Northern India, but also the tying of a string of glass beads round the neck. Girls thus married are to a certain extent envied, for, as their husband is immortal, they can never become widows – a thing to be avoided at any cost! The bogams belong to both the Vaiṣṇava and Saiva sects. Their chief gods are Kṛṣṇa and Gaṇeśa, and in the light tenth of Aswin (October) they worship their dancing dresses, instruments, etc. [33] Their ranks are recruited to a certain extent from girls who have been vowed to temple service by their parents on their recovery from sickness, or on some other similar occasion when they wish to show gratitude to their gods. The training of the bogams is most thorough and complete.

“Commencing their studies at the early age of seven or eight, they are able to perform at twelve or thirteen years of age and continue dancing till they are thirty or forty years old. Dancing-girls attached to temples are required to dance daily before the idols, while the priests are officiating and offering puja to them: but the majority of these are trained to appear in public, when they are profusely ornamented with gold and jewels and sumptuously dressed in silk and muslin.” [34]

Their dress, mode of dancing and details of accompanying instruments are the same as already described by Russell. Most of their songs are lewd in character, usually relating to the amorous life of Kṛṣṇa.

Turning westwards to Bombay there is in the Ratnāgiri and Kānara districts and in the Sāvantvāḍi State a Śūdra caste in which the men are known as devlis or nāiks, and the women as bhāvins or nāikins. The majority trace their descent from the female servants of the Sāvantvāḍi or Mālvan chiefs who were regularly dedicated to the service of the local gods. Women from other Śūdra castes can become bhāvins by simply pouring oil on their heads from the god’s lamp in the temple. When a bhāvin girl attains puberty she has to under-go a form of marriage known as the śeṣa. The bridegroom is represented by a god from the temple. On an auspicious day Gaṇapati is worshipped and the ceremony of Punyāha - vāchana (holy-day blessing) is performed at the girl’s house, and also in a temple, by the Gurav or Rāul of the temple. The Gurav and other servants of the temple then go in procession to the girl’s house, taking with them a dagger and the mask of the god. The marriage ceremony is performed with the same details as an ordinary marriage, the mask taking the place of the bridegroom. The homa, or marriage sacrifice, is also performed. The ceremony ends with a feast to those assembled, but is frequently dispensed with owing to the expenditure involved. In such cases the young girl performs the worship of Gaṇapati, and dressing herself in her best attire goes to a temple to the beating of drums, accompanied by a party of bhāvins and temple servants, taking in her hands a cocoanut and a packet of sugar. She places the cocoanut and sugar before the image of the god and bows to him. The Gurav and other temple servants then invoke on her the blessings of the god, and the ceremony ends. Her temple duties are confined to sweeping the floor, sprinkling it with fresh cow-dung, and waving the fly-whisk before the god. She practises prostitution promiscuously, and only differs from the secular variety by her being a dēva-dāsī.

It is, however, interesting to note that the bhāvin is not allowed to dance or sing in public. The devlis also serve in the temples, their chief duties being the blowing of horns and trumpets morning and evening. The daughters of bhāvins usually follow their mothers’ calling; if not, they are married to the sons of other bhāvins – i.e. to the devlis. [35]

In the Karnāṭak, Kolhāpur and the States of the Southern Mahrāṭha country the dāsa caste dedicate their men to the temple, and their women only in a lesser degree. Contrary to the usual rule the women so dedicated are not allowed in the temple at all, their duties being only to sweep the temple yard. They live by prostitution.

Southern India

As has already been mentioned, it is in Southern India that the tenets of the Hindu faith have suffered less from the devastating hand of the invader. Consequently details of ritual have become deeply rooted in the minds of the people, so that in many cases we may expect to find earlier and more original forms of any particular custom or ceremony. Furthermore, the love of building innumerable temples and constantly increasing the Hindu pantheon always appears to have been greater in the South. It is here, therefore, that we get much fuller accounts of sacred prostitution, and nearly all the writings of missionaries and travellers have something to say of the dēva-dāsīs of Madras, Mysore or Travancore.

The earliest direct reference to the subject I can find appears in certain Tamil inscriptions dating back to the time of Rājarāja the Great, the most prominent of the Chōḷa monarchs. He came to the throne in a.d. 985 and, like all the Chōḷa kings, was a votary of Siva. One inscription [36] shows that in a.d. 1004 the chief temple at Tanjore had four hundred tali-cheri-peṇḍugaḷ, or “women of the temple,” attached to it. They lived in the streets surrounding the temple and in return for their service received one or more shares, each of which consisted of the produce of one vēli [37] of land, calculated at 100 kalam of paddy. The whole Chōḷa country was full of temples with dēva-dāsīs in attendance, as is clear from this inscription, which gives a long list of the dancing-girls who had been transferred to the Tañjāvūr (Tanjore) temple. After each name details are added showing from what temple the girl originally came, and the number of shares she was now to receive. Finally the names and shares of the eunuchs, musicians, dancing-masters, singers, parasol-bearers, barbers and other men connected with the temple are given. It is interesting to note that although Rājarāja was a Saiva, the temple girls imported came from both Saiva and Vaiṣṇava temples.

The next mention of the dēva-dāsīs is made by the greatest of mediaeval travellers, Marco Polo. About 1290 he was on the Coromandel coast, and in describing the inhabitants of the “Province of Maabar” (i.e. Tanjore) he says: [38]

“They have certain abbeys in which are gods and goddesses to whom many young girls are consecrated; their fathers and mothers presenting them to that idol for which they entertain the greatest devotion. And when the [monks] of a convent desire to make a feast to their god, they send for all those consecrated damsels and make them sing and dance before the idol with great festivity. They also bring meats to feed their idol withal; that is to say, the damsels prepare dishes of meat and leave it there a good while, and then the damsels all go to their dancing and singing and festivity for about as long as a great Baron might require to eat his dinner. By that time they say the spirit of the idols has consumed the substance of the food, so they remove the viands to be eaten by themselves with great jollity. This is performed by these damsels several times every year until they are married.

“The reason assigned for summoning the damsels to these feasts is, as the monks say, that the god is vexed and angry with the goddess, and will hold no communication with her; and they say that if peace be not established between them things will go from bad to worse, and they never will bestow their grace and benediction. So they make those girls come in the way described, to dance and sing, all but naked, before the god and the goddess. And those people believe that the god often solaces himself with the society of the goddess.”

As Yule says in a note on this passage (p. 351), Polo does not seem to have quite understood the nature of the institution of the temple dancing-girls, for there was no question of marriage as they were already married – either to the god or to some substitute for a bridegroom such as a sword, dagger or drum. Another point to notice is that Polo describes the girls as “all but naked.” This is in strict contradiction to all accounts which came later; in fact travellers have drawn special attention to the fact that the attraction of the covered body was fully realised by the dancers.

At the beginning of the section on Northern India we saw that by 1340 the Sultanate of Delhi was breaking up and that in the South Vijayanagar was already a powerful kingdom. The story of the foundation of this great Hindu monarchy, formed to check the onrush of the Moslem hordes which were sweeping gradually southwards, makes a thrilling page of Indian history. The glories of the magnificent capital have been fully described by many travellers, [39] but a complete history of the kingdom has yet to be written. It was not until 1565 that Vijayanagar was destroyed by the Moslems, and even then the peninsula to the south of Tungabhadrā remained unaffected as far as its dharma (religion and morality) were concerned. Of the various writers who have described the kingdom the two who give the best description of the social conditions are ‘Abdu-r Razzāq, the ambassador from Persia, and Domingos Paes, the Portuguese. ‘Abdu-r Razzāq explains how the prostitution of the dancing-girls was a great source of revenue to the kingdom; in fact the entire upkeep of the police (12,000 in number) was paid out of the proceeds of the women.

He gives a description of the wealth and splendour of the girls, and says:

“After the time of mid-day prayers, they place at the doors of these houses, which are beautifully decorated, chairs and settees on which the courtesans seat themselves. Every one is covered with pearls, precious stones and costly garments. They are all exceedingly young and beautiful. Each has one or two slave girls standing before her, wiio invite and allure indulgence and pleasure.”

We get, however, a better account from Paes. He is speaking of the idols in the temples, and after giving some description of Gaṇeśa says:

“They feed the idol every day, for they say that he eats; and when he eats, women dance before him who belong to that pagoda, and they give him food and all that is necessary, and all the girls born of these women belong to the temple. These women are of loose character, and live in the best streets that are in the city; it is the same in all their cities, their streets have the best rows of houses. They are very much esteemed, and are classed among those honoured ones who are the mistresses of the captains; any respectable man may go to their houses without any blame attaching thereto. These women are allowed even to enter the presence of the wives of the king, and they stay with them and eat betel with them, a thing which no other person may do, no matter what his rank may be.”

He also makes special mention of their great wealth:

“Who can fitly describe to you the great riches these women carry on their persons? – collars of gold with many diamonds and rubies and pearls, bracelets also on their arms and on their upper arms, girdles below, and of necessity anklets on the feet. The marvel should be otherwise, namely that women of such a profession should obtain such wealth; but there are women among them who have lands that have been given to them, and litters, and so many maid-servants that one cannot number all their things. There is a woman in this city who is said to have a hundred thousand pardaos, and I believe this from what I have seen of them.”

It seems obvious from the above accounts that in wealthy and powerful kingdoms, such as Vijayanagar was in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, secular and “religious” prostitution practically coincide. [40] If the diamonds were replaced by cheap and tawdry jewellery made in Birmingham, ‘Abdu-r Razzāq’s description might almost refer to one of the courtesan streets in the Esbekiya quarter of Cairo or to similar ones in Algiers. He is describing only the “prostitute” part of the girl’s business and makes no mention of her duties in the temple. They certainly must have been quite unimportant, and the powers of their “protectors” could in all probability regulate the amount of “service” in the temple. Paes, on the other hand, speaks of their temple duties, but also says that they live in the best streets.

We saw that in Maurya times, when Chandragupta was at the zenith of his power in Pāṭaliputra (circa 300 B.C.), a similar state of affairs prevailed. Again in the early eighteenth century the reaction which occurred after the death of the Puritan Aurangzēb caused an enormous laxity of morals, and in consequence the “temple” part of the dēva-dāsīs entirely dropped out. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries travellers gave no detailed descriptions of the dēvi-dāsīs, and we get only scanty mentions in the various works of travel. The chief of these are Linschoten (1598), De Bry (1599), Gouvea (1606), Bernier (1660), Thévenot (1661), Fryer (1673), Wheeler (1701), a writer in Lettres Edificantes (1702), Orme (1770), Sonnerat (1782), and Moor (1794). [41]

At the end of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the accounts become more detailed, the two most reliable of which are those of the Abbé J. A. Dubois and Francis Hamilton (formerly Buchanan). Dubois worked in the Madras Presidency in 1792 and went to Mysore in 1799 to reorganise the Christian community. The outcome of this work was his famous Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, which was translated into English in 1816 direct from the French MS. His remarks on the dancing-girls are interesting.

He says [42] that at first they were reserved exclusively for the Brāhmans, and proceeds:

“And these lewd women, who make a public traffic of their charms, are consecrated in a special manner to the worship of the divinities of India. Every temple of any importance has in its service a band of eight, twelve, or more. Their official duties consist in dancing and singing within the temple twice a day, morning and evening, and also at all public ceremonies. The first they execute with sufficient grace, although their attitudes are lascivious and their gestures indecorous. As regards their singing, it is almost always confined to obscene verses describing some licentious episode in the history of their gods. Their duties, however, are not confined to religious ceremonies. Ordinary politeness (and this is one of the characteristic features of Hindu morality) requires that when persons of any distinction make formal visits to each other they must be accompanied by a certain number of these courtesans. To dispense with them would show a want of respect towards the persons visited, whether the visit was one of duty or of politeness. [This custom is certainly not observed at the present day. – Beauchamp.]

“These women are also present at marriages and other solemn family meetings. All the time which they have to spare in the intervals of the various ceremonies is devoted to infinitely more shameful practices; and it is not an uncommon thing to see even sacred temples converted into mere brothels. They are brought up in this shameful licentiousness from infancy, and are recruited from various castes, some among them belonging to respectable families. It is not unusual for pregnant women, with the object of obtaining a safe delivery, to make a vow, with the consent of their husbands, to devote the child that they carry in their womb, if it should turn out a girl, to the temple service. They are far from thinking that this infamous vow offends in any way the laws of decency, or is contrary to the duties of motherhood. In fact no shame whatever is attached to parents whose daughters adopt this career.

“The courtesans are the only women in India who enjoy the privilege of learning to read, to dance, and to sing. A well-bred and respectable woman would for this reason blush to acquire any one of these accomplishments. [In these days female education is slowly extending to all classes, and the prejudice which formerly existed no longer applies to women learning to read and sing, though dancing is still restricted to the professional dancing-girls, and is not considered respectable. – Beauchamp.]

“The dēva-dāsīs receive a fixed salary for the religious duties which they perform; but as the amount is small they supplement it by selling their favours in as profitable a manner as possible.”

Like several other writers he mentions the special care taken by the dēva-dāsīs not to expose any part of their body, because they fully realise that the imagination is more easily captivated than the eye. Dubois says in the above extract that they dance “twice a day, morning and evening.” This agrees with the remarks of the Chinese traveller Chau Ju-Kwa of the thirteenth century, but differs from the description to be given by Shortt below.

Francis Hamilton, [43] writing nearly the same time as Dubois, gives a similar account of the dēva-dāsīs. He says, however, that if a girl is pretty she is almost certain to be taken from the temple by some “officer of revenue,” and seldom permitted to return except in his presence. When a dancing-girl grew too old to be attractive she was turned out of the temple without any means of support given her, and for this reason she always tried to get a good-looking daughter to succeed – and support her. Speaking of the temples at Tulava he says: “There prevails a very singular custom, which has given origin to a caste named moylar. Any woman... who is tired of her husband, or who (being a widow, and consequently incapable of marriage) is tired of a life of celibacy, goes to a temple, and eats some of the rice that is offered to the idol. She is then taken before the officers of Government, who assemble some people of her caste to inquire into the cause of her resolution; and, if she be of the Brāhman caste, to give her an option of either living in the temple or out of its precincts. If she choose the former, she gets a daily allowance of rice, and annually a piece of cloth. She must sweep the temple, fan the idol with a Tibet cow’s tail (bos grunniens), and confine her amours to the Brāhmans.... The Brāhmany women who do not choose to live in the temple, and the women of the three lower castes, cohabit with any man of pure descent that they please; but they must pay annually to the temple from one sixteenth to half a pagoda.”

No further information on the dēva-dāsīs appears to have been published till 1868, when Dr John Shortt read a most interesting paper before the Anthropological Society, entitled

“The Bayadère: or, Dancing Girls of Southern India.” [44]

His investigations confirm previous accounts, but owing to advantages gained in his medical capacity he was able to obtain details which the ordinary traveller finds so hard to acquire. He differs from Dubois in saying that the girls dance six times a day, but in turns.

They never marry, and begin a strenuous three-year course of singing and dancing at the early age of five.

“When these girls are attached to pagodas, they receive certain sums as wages, the amount of which is dependent on the worth, sanctity, and popularity of the particular temple which they have joined. The money salary they receive is nominal – seldom exceeding a few annas, and sometimes a rupee or two a month. The chief object in being paid this sum as a salary is to indicate that they are servants of the temple; in addition to this, one or more of them receive a meal a day, consisting merely of a mass of boiled rice rolled into a ball.”

He gives full details of their dress. It differs from that described by Thurston as worn by the girls in Central India.

Instead of tinsel-covered dress with skirts reaching below the knees and tight satin trousers, Shortt says:

“Their dancing dress comprises usually the short jacket or choolee, a pair of string drawers tied at the waist, termed jpyjamas – both these are generally of silk, and a white or coloured wrapper or saree: one end of the saree is wound around the waist, and two, three, or more feet, according to the length, is gathered and inserted into the portion encircling the waist, and permitting of a folding fringe or gathering of the cloth in front, and the other end, taken after the usual native fashion over the left shoulder, descends towards the waist, when the end, or moonthanee, is opened out and allowed to drop in front, one end of it being inserted in the waist on the side, and the other left free. This portion of the saree is usually highly ornamented with golden thread, tinsel, etc. – the free end descends to the middle or lower part of the thighs, the other free end of the saree hanging down towards the legs is now got hold of, passed between the legs and fastened to the tie around the waist at the back, and the whole encircled by a gold or silver waist belt. By this mode of dress a fold of the muslin saree forms a loop round each leg, and descends nearly to the ankles, whilst the gathering hangs in front between the legs free.”

They had their own special laws for adoption and inheritance, and were treated with respect and consideration. At one time their ranks were largely increased by kidnapping, but even in Shortt’s day this was quite a rare occurrence. This was often done by an aged dancer in order to procure a successor and a maintenance.

Once again we see the worst side of a depraved priesthood, for

“as soon as a girl attains maturity, her virginity, if not debauched by the pagoda brāhmins, is sold to outsiders in proportion to the wealth of the party seeking the honour, if such it may be termed, after which she leads a continuous course of prostitution – prostituting her person at random, to all but outcasts, for any trifling sum.”

Details of the musical instruments and dances are given, special attention being drawn to the surprising feats of strength and bodily powers of endurance the girls undergo.

“In what is called the sterria coothoo, athletic feats are performed, resting their hands on the ground and flinging their feet in the air with great rapidity, and thus twirling round and round successively performing various somersaults; lying full length on the ground with their hands and feet resting, contorting, twirling, and twisting their bodies in various ways, or whilst resting on the hands and legs, with their backs to the ground and their chest and abdomen turned upwards, drawing the hands and feet as close together as possible; whilst their bodies are thus arched, they, with their mouths, pick up rupees from the ground. In this arched position, beating time with their hands and feet, they work round and round in a circle. During their performance they join their attendants in the songs that are sung, and regulate the various movements of their bodies to the expressions given vent to in the song.”

In the remainder of his article Shortt confirms what we have already seen – the girls are far more educated than the married women, their songs are lewd, they get most of their wealth outside the temple, they are considered an acquisition in a town and form the chief magnet of Hindu society; a wife considers it honourable for her husband to patronise them, and, finally, they are more sinned against than sinning. This is obviously true, for what chance can a child of five have when everything is arranged for her – probably before her birth! Owing to the wise guidance of British rule female education and enlightenment have made great strides since 1868 and we are likely to hear less and less of the dēva-dāsīs. Secular prostitution always has existed and always will exist, for the simple reason that, where there is a certain and constant demand, so also is there an equally certain and constant supply.

We have now to consider a class of women who, although being sacred prostitutes, are hardly ever dancing-girls. Their existence is due to circumstance alone. Among women of the lower Śūdra castes of Southern India, when there is no son to perform the obsequies of the parents, it is customary to endow a daughter with masculine privileges by dedicating her to a deity. Such a woman is known by the name of basivi. As is often the custom among dēva-dāsīs, girls are frequently dedicated as basivis by promise before their birth, or owing to a vow during illness.

Detailed investigations on the basivis have been carried out by Mr Fawcett [45] in the western part of the Bellary district of Madras, and in the portions of Dharwar and Mysore which adjoin it. Although variations of the dedication ceremony occur in different localities, the following description by Mr Fawcett can be taken as generally representative.

After the girl has been conducted with music to the temple by her parents, she is dressed in new clothes, usually white, and two seers of rice, five dates, five cocoanuts, five [46] betel leaves, and the same number of betel nuts, also turmeric [47] and plantains and areca nuts, a gold tali, a silver bangle, and two silver toe-rings are borne in a tray or basket. On arrival at the temple reverence is made to the idol, and, if he is present, to the guru, or high priest, and he, as the officiating priest, receives a fee and the tray or basket of things, and the ceremony is begun. If the guru is present he orders the priest and disciples who may be present “to bring the god to the girl,” and they proceed with the ceremony. She is conducted to that part of the temple where such ceremonies are generally performed, usually in front of the idol, and is made to sit on a black cambly, or country-made blanket (never on a white one), facing east, right knee raised and right elbow resting on it, head bent and covered. In front of her is spread some rice, on which are placed the kernels of five cocoanuts, one at each corner and one in the centre, and similarly five betel nuts, five pieces of turmeric, five dried dates, and five duḍḍus and a ṭankam in a bran vessel (a duḍḍu=l anna 8 pies, and a ṭankam=5 annas 4 pies). Kankanam, a yellow thread, such as is used in Hindu marriages and once to be used in satis, to which a betel leaf is fastened, is tied on her right wrist by the senior basivi present. A marriage song is then sung by the basivi and married women (not widows), who throw yellow rice over the girl. They put the bangle on her right wrist, and tie the tali, on which is depicted the irāman of Viṣṇu, and which is fastened to a necklace of black beads, round her neck, and they make the girl put on the toe-rings. These marriage tokens, which are worn by Hindu women until their husbands’ death, are worn by the basivi until her own death. She is given, by way of insignia, a cane about three feet long, as a wand, carried in the right hand, and a gopālam, or begging basket, slung on the left arm. She is then branded with a heated brass instrument, with a chakra on the right shoulder, in front, similarly on the left shoulder with a shenk (chank) and over the right breast with a chakra. As well known, these are the emblems of Viṣṇu. The third mark, over the breast, is never done if there is any suspicion the girl is not a virgin. Sometimes girls are dedicated after maturity. It may be mentioned that, if he is present, the guru heats the instruments or holds them a moment ere they are used. After being branded, the girl’s forehead is marked with kunkam, a red powder commonly used in feminine adornment. A seer and a quarter of rice, two dried cocoanuts minus the shells, betel leaves, a few areca nuts, five pieces of turmeric and five dates are then tied in her cloth, in front, below the waist, and she is made to rise, taken thrice round the temple and into the god’s sanctuary, where she prostrates herself before the image.

Alms are distributed, certain sums, determined by the girl’s parents, are given to the officiating priest and to the guru, and the ceremony is concluded by the priest whispering a mantram in the girl’s ear. She is told to be good and think of god “Rāma Kṛṣṇa,” “Govind.” For the next five weeks she is required to beg in the village, carrying her insignia and shouting “Rām! Rām!” “Govind!” as she approaches each house. After this there is the hemm ceremony to mark the girl’s puberty, which corresponds with the garbhādhāna ceremony of the Hindus when the bride is of an age for the fulfilment of marriage. An auspicious day is chosen and fixed on if the parents of the girl are not needy; if they are, they wait until they can find the money or some man who, for the sake of securing the girl, will bear the expenses. The girl is given an oil-bath during the day, and in the evening the initiatory ceremony is repeated, with some additions. A sword with a lime stuck on its point is placed upright beside the novice, and it is held in her right hand. It represents the bridegroom, who in the corresponding ceremony of the Hindu marriage sits on the bride’s right. If the basivi happens to be a dancing-girl the object representing the bridegroom is a drum, and the girl’s insignia consists of a drum and bells. A tray, on which is a kalasyam and a lamp, is then produced and moved thrice in front of the girl from right to left. She rises and, carrying the sword in her right hand, places it in the god’s sanctuary. The ceremony is concluded between nine and ten p.m. The actual religious duties of a basivi are few. They are entirely confined to the temple of her dedication, and consist of fasting on Saturdays, attending the temple for worship, and accompanying processions with her insignia during festivals. Their superior position over married women is due to their bearing the god’s mark on their bodies, and by having no widowhood.

Among the Kakatias, a sect of weavers in Conjeeveram (and perhaps the custom obtains elsewhere), the eldest daughter is always dedicated to a deity, but she does not thereby attain any superior right to property. She is taken to a temple, with rice, cocoanuts, sugar, etc., a plantain leaf is placed on the ground, and on it some raw rice, and on that a brass vessel containing water; mango leaves and darbha grass are put into the vessel, a cocoanut and some flowers are placed on the top of it, and the water is purified by mantrams, and the leaves, grass and water are lightly thrown over the girl. A thread is then tied to her left wrist, and she swallows a pill of the five products of the cow for purification. She is then branded with a chakra on the right shoulder and with a shenk or chank on the left, and her forehead is marked with the god’s irāmam; the priest prays for her, and she distributes alms and presents. A tali, which has been lying at the god’s feet, is then placed on her neck by a senior dancing-girl (there are no basivis there), to whom she makes obeisance. She is given tridham to drink, a piece of cloth is tied on her head, she is decked with flowers and crowned with the god’s cap or mitre, she offers worship through the priest, and is taken home with music. At night she comes to the temple and dances before the idol with bells on her feet. She is not a vestal, and she may ply her music; but she is the god’s, and if not dedicated would soon be cut off from the living; so for her own benefit, and chiefly for the benefit of her family, she is dedicated. To avoid legal complications the public ceremony takes place after puberty.

In Mysore the castes among which the dedication of basivis is common are the Killēkyātas, Madiga, Dombar, Vadda, Beda, Kuruba and Golla. Details will be found in the pamphlets on these castes by H. V. Nanjundayya. [48] There is a certain amount of variation in ceremonies, but the general idea is the same in all cases. In his long article on the dēva-dāsīs Thurston [49] gives interesting samples of petitions presented to a European magistrate or superintendent of police by girls or mothers of girls who are about to become basivis.

One reads as follows: –

“I have got two daughters, aged fifteen and twelve respectively. As I have no male issues, I have got to necessarily celebrate [sic] the ceremony in the temple in connection with the tying of the goddess’s tali to my two daughters under the orders of the guru, in accordance with the customs of my caste. I therefore submit this petition for fear that the authorities may raise any objection (under the Age of Consent Act). I therefore request that the Honourable Court may be pleased to give permission to the tying of the tali to my daughters.”

The most recent account of the dēva-dāsīs is that by Thurston already mentioned. It is drawn mainly from articles in the census reports and gazetteers. Many of the customs have already been discussed in this appendix. There are, however, several important points in the Madras Census Reports for 1901, prepared by Mr Francis, which deserve including.

The profession is not now held in the consideration it once enjoyed.... It is one of the many inconsistencies of the Hindu religion that, though their profession is repeatedly and vehemently condemned by the śāstras, it has always received the countenance of the Church.... At the present day they form a regular caste, having its own laws of inheritance, its customs and rules of etiquette, and its own panchāyats (councils) to see that all these are followed, and thus hold a position which is perhaps without a parallel in any other country. Dancing-girls, dedicated to the usual profession of the caste, are formally married in a temple to a sword or a god, the tali (marriage badge) being tied round their necks by some men of their caste. It was a standing puzzle to the census-enumerators whether such women should be entered as married in the column referring to civil condition.

Among the dāsīs, sons and daughters inherit equally, contrary to ordinary Hindu usage. Some of the sons remain in the caste, and live by playing music for the women to dance to, and accompaniments to their songs, or by teaching singing and dancing to the younger girls, and music to the boys. These are called naṭṭuvar. Others marry some girl of the caste who is too plain to be likely to be a success in the profession, and drift out of the community. Some of these affix to their names the terms piḷḷai and mudali, which are the usual titles of the two castes (veḷḷāḷa and kaikōla) from which most of the dāsīs are recruited, and try to live down the stigma attaching to their birth. Others join the mēlakkārar, or professional musicians. Cases have occurred in which wealthy sons of dancing-women have been allowed to marry girls of respectable parentage of other castes, but they are very rare. The daughters of the caste, who are brought up to follow the caste profession, are carefully taught dancing, singing, the art of dressing well, and the ars amoris, and their success in keeping up their clientèle is largely due to the contrast which they thus present to the ordinary Hindu housewife, whose ideas are bounded by the day’s dinner and the babies.

The dancing-girl castes and their allies, the mēlakkārar, are now practically the sole repository of Indian music, the system of which is probably one of the oldest in the world. Besides them and the Brāhmans few study the subject....

There are two divisions among the dāsīs, called valangai (right-hand) and iḍangai (left-hand). The chief distinction between them is that the former will have nothing to do with the kammālar (artisans) or any other of the left-hand castes, or play or sing in their houses. The latter division is not so particular, and its members are consequently sometimes known as the kcimmâla dāsīs. Neither division, however, is allowed to have any dealings with men of the lowest castes, and violation of this rule of etiquette is tried by a jpanchāyat of the caste, and visited with excommunication....

Among the kaikōlan musicians of Coimbatore at least one girl in every family should be set apart for the temple service, and she is instructed in music and dancing. At the tāli-tymg ceremony she is decorated with jewels and made to stand on a heap of paddy (unhusked rice). A folded cloth is held before her by two dāsīs, who also stand on heaps of paddy. The girl catches hold of the cloth, and her dancing-master, who is seated behind her, grasping her legs, moves them up and down in time with the music which is played. In the evening she is taken, astride a pony, to the temple, where a new cloth for the idol, the tāli, and other articles required for doing pūjā (worship) have been got ready. The girl is seated facing the idol, and the officiating Brāhman gives the sandal and flowers to her, and ties the tāli, which has been lying at the feet of the idol, round her neck. The tāli consists of a golden disc and black beads. She continues to learn music and dancing, and eventually goes through the form of a nuptial ceremony. The relations are invited on an auspicious day, and the maternal uncle, or his representative, ties a golden band on the girl’s forehead, and, carrying her, places her on a plank before the assembled guests. A Brāhman priest recites mantrams (prayers), and prepares the sacred fire (hōmam). For the actual nuptials a rich Brāhman, if possible, or, if not, a Brāhman of more lowly status, is invited. A Brāhman is called in, as he is next in importance to, and the representative of, the idol. As a dāsī can never become a widow, the beads in her tāli are considered to bring good luck to women who wear them. And some people send the tāli required for a marriage to a dāsī, who prepares the string for it, and attaches to it black beads from her own tali. A dāsī is also deputed to walk at the head of Hindu marriage-processions. Married women do not like to do this, as they are not proof against evil omens, which the procession may meet. And it is believed that dāsīs, to whom widowhood is unknown, possess the power of warding off the effects of inauspicious omens. It may be remarked, en passant, that dāsīs are not at the present day so much patronised at Hindu marriages as in olden times. Much is due in this direction to the progress of enlightened ideas, which have of late been strongly put forward by Hindu social reformers. When a kaikolan dāsī dies, her body is covered with a new cloth removed from the idol, and flowers are supplied from the temple to which she belonged. No pūjā is performed in the temple till the corpse is disposed of, as the idol, being her husband, has to observe pollution.

In Travancore the institution of the dēva-dāsīs affords an interesting comparison with that existing in other parts of India. The following account is taken from data collected by Mr N. S. Aiyer.

While the dāsīs of Kartikappalli, Ambalapuzha and Shertallay belonged originally to the Konkan coast, those of Shenkottah belonged to the Pāṇḍiyan country. But the South Travancore dāsīs are an indigenous class. The female members of the caste are, besides being known by the ordinary name of tēvaḍiyāḷ and dāsī, both meaning “servant of god,” called kuḍikkar, meaning “those belonging to the house” (i.e. given rent free by the Sirkar), and peṇḍukaḷ, or women, the former of these designations being more popular than the latter. Males are called tēvaḍiyan, though many prefer to be known as Nanchināṭ Veḷḷāḷas. Males, like these Veḷḷāḷas, take the title of Piḷḷai. In ancient days dēva-dāsīs who became experts in singing and dancing received the title of Rāyar (king), which appears to have been last conferred in A.D. 1847. The South Travancore dāsīs neither interdine nor intermarry with the dancing-girls of the Tamil-speaking districts. They adopt girls only from a particular division of the Nāyars, the Tamil Padam, and dance only in temples. Unlike their sisters outside Travancore, they do not accept private engagements in houses on the occasion of marriage. The males, in a few houses, marry the Tamil Padam and Padamangalam Nāyars, while some Padamangalam Nāyars and Nanchināṭ Veḷḷāḷas in their turn take their women as wives.

When a dancing-woman becomes too old or diseased, and thus unable to perform her usual temple duties, she applies to the temple authorities for permission to remove her ear-pendants (tōḍu). The ceremony takes place at the palace of the Mahārāja. At the appointed spot the officers concerned assemble, and the woman, seated on a wooden plank, proceeds to unhook the pendants, and places them, with a nazar (gift) of twelve paṇams (coins), on the plank. Directly after this she turns about, and walks away without casting a second glance at the ear-ornaments which have been laid down. She becomes immediately a taikkizhavi, or old mother, and is supposed to lead a life of retirement and resignation. By way of distinction, a dāsī in active service is referred to as āṭum-pātram. Though the ear-ornaments are at once returned to her from the palace, the woman is never again permitted to put them on, but only to wear the pampadam, or antiquated ear-ornament of Tamil Śūdra women. Her temple wages undergo a slight reduction, consequent on her proved incapacity.

In some temples, as at Kēralapuram, there are two divisions of dancing-girls, one known as the muzakkuḍi, to attend to the daily routine, the other as the chirappukuḍi, to serve on special occasions.

The special duties that may be required of the South Travancore dāsīs are:

to attend the two Utsavas at Padmanābhaswāmi’s temple, and the Dusserah at the capital;

to meet and escort members of the royal family at their respective village limits;

to undertake the prescribed fasts for the apamārga ceremony in connection with the annual festival of the temple.

On these days strict continence is enjoined, and they are fed at the temple, and allowed only one meal a day.

The principal deities of the dancing-girls are those to whom the temples, in which they are employed, are dedicated. They observe the new and full moon days, and the last Friday of every month, as important. The Oṇam, Śivarātri, Tai-Pongal, Dīpāvali and Chitrapūrṇami are the best recognised religious festivals. Minor deities, such as Bhadrakāli, Yakṣi and Gandharva are worshipped by the figure of a trident or sword being drawn on the wall of the house, to which food and sweetmeats are offered on Fridays. The priests on these occasions are ōchchans. There are no recognised headmen in the caste. The services of Brāhmans are resorted to for the purpose of purification, of nampiyans and Śaiva Veḷḷāḷas for the performance of funeral rites, and of gurus on occasions of marriage and for the final ceremonies on the sixteenth day after death.

Girls belonging to this caste may either be dedicated to temple service or married to a male member of the caste. No woman can be dedicated to the temple after she has reached puberty. On the occasion of marriage a sum of from fifty to a hundred and fifty rupees is given to the bride’s house, not as a bride-price, but for defraying the marriage expenses. There is a preliminary ceremony of betrothal, and the marriage is celebrated at an auspicious hour. The guru recites a few hymns, and the ceremonies, which include the tying of the tāli, continue for four days. The couple commence joint life on the sixteenth day after the girl has reached puberty. It is easy enough to get a divorce, as this merely depends upon the will of one of the two parties, and the woman becomes free to receive clothes from another person in token of her having entered into a fresh matrimonial alliance.

All applications for the presentation of a girl to the temple are made to the temple authorities by the senior dancing-girl of the temple, the girl to be presented being in all cases from six to eight years of age. If she is closely related to the applicant no inquiries regarding her status and claim need be made. In all other cases formal investigations are instituted, and the records taken are submitted to the chief revenue officer of the division for orders. Some paddy (rice) and five paṇams are given to the family from the temple funds towards the expenses of the ceremony. The practice at the Suchindram temple is to convene, on an auspicious day, a yoga, or meeting, composed of the Valiya Śrl-kāriyakkar, the Yogattil Potti, the Vattappalli Muttatu, and others, at which the preliminaries are arranged. The girl bathes, and goes to the temple on the morning of the selected day with two new cloths, betel leaves and nuts. The temple priest places the cloths and the tāli at the feet of the image and sets apart one for the divine use. The tāli consists of a triangular bottu, bearing the image of Gaṇeśa, with a gold bead on either side. Taking the remaining cloth and the tāli, and sitting close to the girl, the priest, facing to the north, proceeds to officiate. The girl sits, facing the deity, in the inner sanctuary. The priest kindles the fire, and performs all the marriage ceremonies, following the custom of the Tirukkalyāṇam festival, when Siva is represented as marrying Pārvatī. He then teaches the girl the Panchākṣara hymn if the temple is Śaivite, and Aṣṭākṣara if it is Vaiṣṇavite, presents her with the cloth, and ties the tali round her neck. The naṭṭuvan, or dancing-master, instructs her for the first time in his art, and a quantity of raw rice is given to her by the temple authorities. The girl, thus married, is taken to her house, where the marriage festivities are celebrated for two or three days. As in Brāhmanical marriages, the rolling of a cocoanut to and fro is gone through, the temple priest or an elderly dāsī, dressed in male attire, acting the part of the bridegroom. The girl is taken in procession through the streets.

The birth of male children is not made an occasion for rejoicing, and, as the proverb goes, the lamp on these occasions is only dimly lighted. Inheritance is in the female line, and women are the absolute owners of all property earned. When a dancing-girl dies some paddy and five paṇams are given to the temple to which she was attached, to defray the funeral expenses. The temple priest gives a garland, and a quantity of ashes for decorating the corpse. After this a nampiyan, an ōchchan, some Veḷḷäḷa headmen and a kuḍik-kāri, having no pollution, assemble at the house of the deceased. The nampiyan consecrates a pot of water with prayers, the ōchchan plays on his musical instrument, and the Veḷḷāḷas and kuḍikkāri powder the turmeric to be smeared over the corpse. In the case of temple devotees, their dead bodies must be bathed with this substance by the priest, after which alone the funeral ceremonies may proceed. The kartā (chief mourner), who is the nearest male relative, has to get his whole head shaved. When a temple priest dies, though he is a Brāhman, the dancing-girl on whom he has performed the vicarious marriage rite has to go to his death-bed and prepare the turmeric powder to be dusted over his corpse. The anniversary of the death of the mother and maternal uncle are invariably observed.

The adoption of a dancing-girl is a lengthy ceremony. The application to the temple authorities takes the form of a request that the girl to be adopted may be made heir to both kuḍi and pati – that is, to the house and temple service of the person adopting. The sanction of the authorities having been obtained, all concerned meet at the house of the person who is adopting, a document is executed, and a ceremony, of the nature of the Jātakarma, performed. The girl then goes through the marriage-rite, and is handed over to the charge of the music-teacher to be regularly trained in her profession.

In concluding his article, Thurston gives a number of cases about the initiation, laws of inheritance, etc., which have been argued in the Madras High Court, besides a selection of current proverbs relating to dancing-girls. These will be found on pp. 145-153 of the above-mentioned article.

We have now become acquainted with all the important data on the subject under discussion so far as India is concerned.

In summarising we notice the following points: –

In Vedic times reliable evidence is insufficient to enable us to form any definite conclusion as to the possibility of distinct connection between religion and prostitution.

Although the law-books regarded the latter with disfavour, and in the Buddhist age Brāhmans were not even allowed to hear music or witness dances owing to their inseparable connection with prostitution, yet it appears that the letter of the law was not carried out in any great strictness. This is especially evident when in the collection of the birth-stories of Buddha (the Jātakas) we read of the high esteem in which such women were held, and of the important positions – sometimes even in the king’s palace – which they occupied.

It is quite a feasible suggestion that this State approval of prostitutes may have been, even at this early date, largely due to their taking part (however small) in the ritual at the neighbouring temples. Direct historical evidence of the privileges which these women enjoyed is afforded by Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra (circa 300 B.C.), where we learn that, although under strict regulations, the prostitutes often acquired great position and wealth.

In the early Christian era we still find no direct reference to the dēva-dāsī, but literary evidence distinctly refers to dancing as one of the chief accomplishments of the courtesan. After about the twelfth century our evidence becomes more definite and geographical.

In the time of Akbar rules were issued relating to the superintendence of the prostitute dancing-girls, and, as the oppression of the Mohammedans increased, so, in inverse ratio, did the “religious” element in the institution of the dēva-dāsīs become less and less. After the death of the Puritan Aurangzēb the general morality sank to a very low level, and prostitution, now entirely secular, reached huge dimensions.

In modern days the prostitute dancing-castes divide themselves into two branches, according as to whether they are Hindus or Mohammedans. Only one sub-caste, the rāj-kanyā, has any definite connection with the temples. Further evidence shows that there is no system of dev a-dāsīs as there is in the South, which state of things is due mainly to the Mohammedan conquest in earlier days.

As we proceed southwards direct references to the dēva-dāsīs become more common. In Central India we find the system fully developed at Jagannātha, in Orissa, where the sincerity of the worshippers was as undoubted as the viciousness of the priesthood. Thus there existed side by side religion and prostitution. As the latter was recognised and approved by both Church and State, its acceptance by the worshippers of Yiṣṇu, who looked to the Brāhman priests for guidance, can be readily understood.

We now come across accounts of the so-called marriage ceremonies of the dēva-dāsīs which attach to them a certain amount of envy, owing to the fact that, as they are married to a god, or an emblem of a divine husband, they can never become widows. This fact and the stamping of the bodies of the women with the symbols of the gods are the chief reasons which cause the dēva-dāsī to be approved by the ordinary married women and resorted to by their husbands.

Although British rule has done much to suppress the element of vice in the institution of the dēva-dāsīs, it is much too deeply rooted to extirpate. We find the ritual still prevalent in parts of Central India and still more so in the South.

It is here that our accounts are much fuller and reliable, and even as early as a.d. 985 we find the system flourishing under the Chōja monarchs. Mediæval travellers confirm these accounts.

It seems clear, however, that when the wealth and splendour of a kingdom reached its height, as in the case of Vijayanagar in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the “service” of the dēva-dāsī became almost entirely confined to the streets, while her temple duties were practically nonexistent.

Farther south the religious observances had been more closely maintained, and travellers of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries found the temple-women taking a prominent part at all the chief temples. It is obvious to see from the more detailed accounts that here we have the fuller and more developed form of the system of sacred prostitution as compared with what we find farther north.

The privileges of dedicating a girl to the deity are fully realised by the lower Śūdra castes and, as we see by the strange system of basivis, they can actually perform the obsequies of the parents in the place of the son. As the duty to the dead is of such great importance to the Hindu, it can at once be realised that not only are the dedicated prostitutes regarded with favour, but in many cases are entrusted with the performing of the most sacred duties, thus enabling their parents to die in peace.

On the other hand, the status of the dèva-dāsī is not held in the high consideration it once was, and modern education in India has done much to open the eyes of a more enlightened generation.

Surveying the total evidence here collected, the reader naturally asks himself how it was that the sacred and profane became thus united; or, in other words, what was the real origin of “sacred” prostitution. Numerous theories exist as to the true explanation of this strange custom, but none is entirely satisfactory. It will, however, help us in our inquiry to list the chief:

It is a substitute for human sacrifice, being an offering to the deity in order to appease him or to secure blessings for the country in question and its inhabitants.

It is an expiation for individual marriage as a temporary recognition of pre-existing communal marriage.

It springs from the custom of providing sexual hospitality for strangers; and if such hospitality be offered by the mortal wife of a deity, good would be bound to result.

It is a rite to ensure the fruitfulness of the ground and the increase of man and beast on the principle of homoeopathic magic.

It arises from the secular and precautionary practice of destroying a bride’s virginity by someone other than the bridegroom.

It merely represents the licentious worship of a people, subservient to a degraded and vicious priesthood.

It is a part of the phallic worship which existed in India from,early Dravidian times.

All the above theories have been put forward from time to time by men whose opinions have been, or are, respected.

The evidence already laid before the reader shows clearly that most of them are quite insufficient to account for the whole institution of dēva-dāsīs, while others, such as Nos. 5 and 6, have already been disproved. No. 4, supported by Frazer and many other scholars, seems to be feasible, although it certainly does not account for everything.

The above theories have been presented by men who made comparisons, and I feel that the fact is often overlooked that the origin of a certain custom in one part of the world may not necessarily be the same as that of a similar custom in another part of the world.

In speaking of sacred prostitution in Western Asia Frazer [50] says:

“The true parallel to these customs is the sacred prostitution which is carried on to this day by dedicated women in India and Africa.”

This is a sweeping statement to make, especially when we bear in mind how scanty is our knowledge of the early Semitic pantheon, the differences of opinion held by some of our greatest Babylonian scholars, and the lack of reliable historic data of the early Yedic period in India.

We must also remember that the religion, ethics and philosophy of India have been ever changing, and nothing is more inapplicable than to speak of the “changeless East” in this respect.

Our knowledge of the early Dravidian religion of India before it was “taken over” by the Aryan invaders is so slight that it is impossible to make any definite statement with regard to the origin of any particular custom of ritual or religious observance.

In order, however, to enable readers to make their own deductions and to follow up any branch of the subject, I shall give a few notes on sacred prostitution in countries other than India.

Religious prostitution in Western Asia is first mentioned in some of the earliest records of Babylonia, and has also been traced in Syria, Phoenicia, Arabia, Egypt, Greece and Rome. Similar cults also occur in the Far East, Central America, West Africa and other localities to be mentioned later.

The subject is a very extensive one, upon which volumes could be written. The following remarks, therefore, merely deal with it in a very general manner. Care, however, has been taken to provide ample references, so that the student can pursue the subject to any length.

As Mesopotamia was the original home of sacred prostitution, I shall deal with the Babylonian evidence more fully than with that from other localities outside India, about which the classical writers of Rome and Greece have already made us sufficiently familiar.

 

Babylonia

In discussing the “sacred servants,” or hierodouloi, in ancient Babylonia we can conveniently divide the subject under the two following headings: –

The Code of Hammurabi.

The Epic of Gilgamesh.

 

1. About 2090 B.C., during the first dynasty of Babylon (which corresponds to the twelfth Egyptian dynasty), Hammurabi set up in the temple of Marduk, the city god, at Babylon, a code of laws embodying the decisions of a long series of judges who were already acquainted with a system of laws probably of Sumerian origin. Babylonian law ran in the name of God, and the temple was naturally a very large factor in the life of the people. It formed an intimate connection between their god and themselves, and their ritual tended to emphasise this fact.

[Appendix IV - continue]

Accordingly their god would dine with them at sacrificial feasts, he would intermarry with them, and would be appealed to as an adviser and helper in times of danger or difficulty. The temple was, moreover, the house of the god and thus was the outward sign of human relations with divine powers. It was also the centre of the country’s wealth, the equivalent of the modern bank. Its wealth was derived partly from the land it owned, which was either leased out or used for cattle-breeding, and partly from dues of various kinds.

The Code of Hammurabi [51] affected the whole realm, and the laws therein applied to every temple, no matter what god or goddess happened to be locally enshrined. Although Marduk was worshipped at Babylon, at Larsa or Sippar it was Shamash, at Erech it was Innini or Ishtar the mother-goddess, in Ur it was Nannar the moon-god, and so on. Each temple had a staff, varying with its size, which in most cases included both male and female hierodouloi in its service.

The priestesses and temple women formed several distinct classes which need some detailed description.

The priestesses were of two kinds, the entu (Nin-An) and the naṭitu (Sal-Me). Both classes were held in respect, and the entu (brides of the god) were looked upon as the highest class in the land. It is not clear if they married mortal husbands or not, anyway no mention of a father is made. The naṭitu were much more numerous and were allowed to marry, but were not expected to bear children, a maid being supplied for this purpose. Both the entu and the naṭitu were wealthy and owned property.

They could either live in the gagum (cloister) adjoining the temple or in their own houses. If they chose the latter they were forbidden, on pain of being burned alive, to own or enter a wine-shop, so great was the prestige the class had to maintain.

A study of the contract-literature of the period seems to make it clear that just as an ordinary well-to-do citizen could have a chief wife and many inferior ones as well as concubines, so also the god would have his chief wife (entu), his many inferior ones (naṭitu) and his concubines (zikru).

This latter class of consecrated women known as zikru or zermashitu came immediately after the two varieties of priestesses already mentioned. They, too, were well-to-do and held in respect. The zikru or “ vowed” woman is not mentioned in religious literature, nor is zermashitu (seed-purifying). Both of these temple harlots could marry and bear children. The zikru appears to be slightly superior to the zermashitu owing to the fact that in the laws relating to the inheritance of property it is stated that if the father of a zikru died and nothing was left her in his will she was to inherit equally with her brothers, but if she was a zermashitu or a ḳadishtu (to be discussed shortly) she received only one-third of a brother’s share.

The ḳadishtu, although classed with the zermashitu as regards the inheriting of property, clearly occupied a subordinate position. Her name means “sacred woman” and is the same as the Biblical ḳĕdēṣāh (Deut. xxiii, 18). There is no record of her marriage, and her speciality, outside her temple duties, was suckling the children of Babylonian ladies, for which service she received payment, together with a clay tablet recording the contract. Several examples of such tablets can be seen in the British Museum. [52]

Apart from the various temple women already mentioned there were others who were more especially connected with the worship of Ishtar. In the time of Hammurabi the centre of this cult was at Erech, although she had a shrine in the temple of Marduk in Babylon, where, under the name of Sarpanit, she appears in later texts as the wife of Marduk. it is undoubtedly Sarpanit to whom Herodotus refers in his well-known account of the enforced temporary prostitution of every Babylonian woman (i, 199).

In order to understand the cult of the great mother-goddess throughout Western Asia it is necessary to say a few words on the origin of Ishtar. Recent evidence [53] seems to show that Ishtar was not of Semitic Babylonian or even of Sumerian creation, but was a primitive Semitic divinity personifying the force of nature which showed itself in the giving and taking of life. The various functions of Sumerian local goddesses became by absorption merely fresh attributes of Ishtar, the original name sometimes remaining.

Thus we find different cities sacred to different goddesses which are all certain aspects of Ishtar, the great mother-goddess. It follows, therefore, that the characteristics of Ishtar were numerous, for besides being connected with creation of animal and vegetable life and the goddess of sexual love, marriage and maternity, she was also the storm and war goddess and the destroyer of life. It is interesting to compare similar attributes in the male-female (Ardha-nārīśvara) form of Siva, who was both a creator and a destroyer.

In Erech Ishtar was known as Innini, Innanna or Nanā, and as many hymns originally addressed to Innini are appropriated by Ishtar, she bears, among others, the titles of “Queen of Eanna,” “Queen of the land of Erech.” [54] Her cult extended to all cities of importance in Babylonia and Assyria, and it is in her capacity as goddess of sexual love that she concerns us here.

Her character is clearly represented in numerous hymns, where she is described as “the languid-eyed,” “goddess of desire,” “goddess of sighing,” and refers to herself as “a loving courtesan” and “temple-harlot.”

In one hymn she says:

“I turn the male to the female, I turn the female to the male, I am she who adorneth the male for the female, I am she who adorneth the female for the male.” [55]

In art she is depicted as naked with her sexual features emphasised, or as lifting her robe to disclose her charms. [56] Several statues represent her as offering her breasts; some have been found outside Babylonia – e.g. in Northern Syria and Carchemish. [57]

The names given to the licentious ministrants at the Ishtar temple at Erech were kizrēti (harlot), shamkhāti (joy-maiden), and kharimāti (devoted one). If they differed from the zermashitu and ḳadishtu it is impossible to say exactly what the difference was.

They are thus described in the Legend of Girra:

“ Of Erech, home of Anu and of Ishtar,

The town of harlots, strumpets and hetæræ,

Whose (hire) men pay Ishtar, and they yield their hand.”

We will now pass on to the Epic of Gilgamesh, where further data can be obtained.

 

2. The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the most important literary products of Babylonia, and sheds considerable light on the cult of Ishtar. It consists of a number of myths of different ages – some dating back to 2000 B.C. or even earlier – which have all been gathered round the name of Gilgamesh, an early Sumerian ruler of about 4500 B.C.

The Epic is known to us chiefly from a collection of twelve sets of fragments found in the library of Assur-bani-pal, King of Assyria (668-626 B.C.). In the first tablet the goddess Aruru creates a kind of “wild man of the woods,” by name Engidu, [58] to act as a rival to Gilgamesh, whose power and tyranny had begun to be a burden to the people. In order to get Engidu away from his desert home and his beasts, a shamkhāt from Ishtar’s temple is taken to him.

“This woman, when they approached Engidu, opened wide her garments, exposing her charms, yielded herself to his embrace, and for six days and seven nights gratified his desire, until he was won from his wild life.” [59]

In the second tablet the harlot takes him back to Erech, where she clothes and generally looks after him.

He finally meets Gilgamesh, and the next three tablets relate their friendship, quarrels and adventures. The sixth tablet is especially interesting, for here we get a reference to the Ishtar-Tammuz myth which is so inseparable from the great mother-goddess.

After overcoming an enemy named Khumbaba the two friends returned to Erech in triumph. Ishtar asks Gilgamesh to be her husband and promises him all manner of riches and power. He refuses, reminding her of the numerous lovers she has had in the past and what ill luck befell them. In particular he refers to Tammuz, the lover of her youth, whose death she bewails every year. This is, of course, the youthful solar God of the Springtime, who was wooed by the Goddess of Fertility, Ishtar. Each year that Tammuz died Ishtar went to Hades (Sheol) in search of him. The myth has been detailed by many scholars and does not in itself concern us here. [60]

The effects of Ishtar’s descent to Sheol in search of her youthful lover have, however, direct bearing upon our inquiry.

As soon as Ishtar had gone on her annual journey to the underworld, copulation in men and animals ceased. Consequently some remedy had to be sought in order to circumvent such a disastrous state of affairs. Thus arose the necessity for women to play her part as goddess of sexual love and fertility; and to fill this office the “ sacred prostitute 55 was created.

This applies only to the Ishtar cult and not to those cases where priestesses were found in temples dedicated to other deities.

We have seen that in the case of Marduk the god was credited with all human attributes and passions.

To return to Gilgamesh, we find Ishtar very wroth at having her offers of love refused. She sent a bull to kill him, but he destroyed it. Thereupon Ishtar gathered together all her temple women and harlots, and made great outcry and lamentation. [61]

The remaining tablets, containing, among other incidents, the story of the Deluge, do not concern us.

We have seen that at this early period sacred prostitution was fully established and entered into the literature and mythology of the country. Under the male deity the temple harlot plays the part of concubine, while under the female deity she was a kind of “understudy,” always ready to symbolise by her action the purpose of the great mother-goddess.

Without going farther into the cult of Ishtar it will serve our purpose better to move slowly westwards, noting the spread of the worship of a goddess of love and fertility which clearly resembled that of Ishtar. We must not necessarily conclude that whenever we find a mother-goddess it is merely Ishtar transplanted to new soil and given a new name. It seems to be more probable, anyhow in several cases, that local female deities acquired fresh attributes from Ishtar which occasionally became the most prominent features of the cult.

 

Syria, Phoenicia, Canaan, etc.

In Syria the great mother-goddess was known by the name of Attar or Athar, while at the sacred city of Hierapolis (the modern Membij) in the Lebanon she was called Atar-gatis, a word compounded out of’Atar and’Ate, two well-known Syrian deities. The full etymology of these names has been discussed by L. B. Paton, [62] who gives a large number of useful references.

Our information on the worship at Hierapolis is mainly derived from Lucian’s De Dea Syria, which is considered one of his earliest works, probably written about A.D. 150. Recent researches in Asia Minor and Northern Syria, largely numismatic, show that at the height of the Hittite domination in the fourteenth century B.C. the chief religious cult was very similar to that described by Lucian. There were, however, certain differences. The Hittites worshipped a mated pair, a bull god and a lion goddess, while in later days it was the mother-goddess who became prominent, representing fertility, and (in Phoenicia) the goddess who presided over human birth. Religion in the East adapted itself to changing conditions and the immediate needs of the community.

Thus in Syria the climate and temperament of the people tended to develop the sensuous aspect of the goddess. As the cult became more popular, the rites and festivals became more orgiastic in character. The phallic nature of some of the rites at Hierapolis is described by Lucian (28), where he speaks of two huge phalli, thirty fathoms high, which stood at the door of the temple. Twice every year a man (probably one of the castrated Galli) climbed to the summit from the inside, where he was supposed to hold converse with the gods to ensure the prosperity and fertility of the land.

Speaking of the temple at Byblos, Lucian states that after the termination of the mourning for the loss of Adonis (cf. the Tammuz myth) the men shave their heads and the women who refuse to submit to a similar treatment have to prostitute themselves for a whole day in the temple. The proceeds of their hire paid for a sacrifice to the mother-goddess. The fact that the women were only allowed to be hired by strangers forms a curious relic of the system of exogamy.

Evidence seems to make it practically certain that there was a permanent, besides a temporary, system of religious prostitution at the temples, and Eusebius tells us that matrons as well as maids served the goddess in this manner. Lucian shows that the system of enforced temporary prostitution had been modified, and that a modest woman might substitute a portion of her hair instead of her person. This fact is interesting as showing the belief in the hair possessing a large and important percentage of the owner’s personality. Readers will remember the care with which the savage hides or destroys his hair, nail-clippings, etc., lest an enemy get possession of them and work him harm through their means.

By this passage in Lucian we see that at Byblos (Gebal) the sacrifice of chastity was looked upon as the most personal, and therefore most important, offering a woman could make. If she did not give this, then the next best thing – her hair – would be accepted. No such substitution, however, appears to have been allowed in former days – i.e. before Lucian’s time.

The name given to the great mother-goddess in Phoenicia, Canaan, Paphos, Cyprus, etc., was Ashtart, Ashtoreth or Astarte. Her attributes closely resemble those of Ishtar, for we find her represented as a goddess of sexual love, maternity, fertility and war. Both the Greeks and Phoenicians identified her with Aphrodite, thus showing evidence of her sexual character. As is only natural, the Phoenicians carried this worship into their colonies, and so we read in Herodotus (i, 199), Clement of Alexandria (Protrept, ii), Justin (xviii, 5, 4) and Athenæus (xii, 2) of sacred prostitution closely resembling that in Syria. Special mention is made of male prostitutes at the temple of Kition in Cyprus. They are the same as the ḳādhēsh of Deut. xxiii, 18, 19.

Phoenician inscriptions give evidence of a temple of Ashtart at Eryx in Sicily, while along the coast of North Africa the Semitic mother-goddess became very popular under the names of Ashtart and Tanith.

St Augustine (De Civ. Dei, ii, 4) gives some account of the worship which, when stripped of its oratorical vagueness, points to a system of temporary hierodouloi, very similar to that described by Lucian.

In Arabia the mother-goddess was Al-Lāt or Al-‘Uzzā, whose worship was accompanied by the temporary practice of sacred prostitution. It would be superfluous to magnify examples.

We have seen that the practice spread all over Western Asia and into Europe and Africa. Egypt we have not discussed, but the numerous references given by G. A. Barton in his article, “Hierodouloi,” in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. vi, pp. 675-676, show that the system can be clearly traced, especially at Thebes.

To sum up our evidence from Western Asia, there appear to be several reasons to which the institution of sacred prostitution owes its origin:

1. The male deity needed concubines like any mortal, thus women imitated at the temples their divine duties.

2. The female deity, being a goddess of fertility, had under her special care the fruitfulness of vegetation as well as of the animal world. Thus she endeavours to hasten on the return of spring. It is only natural that at her temples women should assist in this great work of procreation, chiefly by imitating the functions necessary to procreate. When the goddess was absent in search of spring, the whole duties of the cult would fall on her mortal votaries.

3. Sacrifices of as important and personal nature as possible would be acceptable to such a goddess, and the hopes of prosperity in the land would be increased.

When human passions enter so largely into a ritual, and when the worshippers and ministrants of the goddess are of an excitable and highly temperamental nature, and finally when one takes into account such factors as climate and environment, it is not surprising that at times the religious side of the ritual would play but a minor part. This happened in India and also in Western Asia, and evidence shows the same thing to have occurred both in ancient Central America and Western Africa.

 

West Africa

Before comparing the above with our Indian data, reference might suitably be made to the sacred men and women in West Africa.

Among the Ewe-speaking peoples of the Slave Coast and the Tshi-speaking peoples of the Gold Coast is to be found a system of sacred prostitution very similar to that which we have already considered. The subject was mentioned by Burton [63] and has since been fully discussed by Ellis, [64] and as Frazer has quoted so largely from him, [65] it will not be necessary to give any detailed description here.

Two quotations will be sufficient:

“Young people of either sex, dedicated or affiliated to a god, are termed kosio, from kono, ‘unfruitful,’ because a child dedicated to a god passes into his service and is practically lost to his parents, and si, ‘to run away.’ As the females become the ‘wives’ of the god to whom they are dedicated, the termination si in võdu-si has been translated ‘wife’ by some Europeans; but it is never used in the general acceptation of that term, being entirely restricted to persons consecrated to the gods. The chief business of the female kosi is prostitution, and in every town there is at least one institution in which the best-looking girls, between ten and twelve years of age, are received. Here they remain for three years, learning the chants and dances peculiar to the worship of the gods, and prostituting themselves to the priests and inmates of the male seminaries; and at the termination of their novitiate they become public prostitutes. This condition, however, is not regarded as one for reproach; they are considered to be married to the god, and their excesses are supposed to be caused and directed by him. Properly speaking, their libertinage should be confined to the male worshippers at the temple of the god, but practically it is indiscriminate. Children who are born from such unions belong to the god.”

Just as in India, these women are not allowed to marry a mortal husband. On page 148 of the same work Ellis says:

“The female kosio of Dañh-gbi, or Dañh-sio, that is, the wives, priestesses, and temple prostitutes of Dañh-gbi, the python-god, have their own organisation. Generally they live together in a group of houses or huts inclosed by a fence, and in these inclosures the novices undergo their three years of initiation. Most new members are obtained by the affiliation of young girls; but any woman whatever, married or single, slave or free, by publicly simulating possession, and uttering the conventional cries recognised as indicative of possession by the god, can at once join the body, and be admitted to the habitations of the order. The person of a woman who was joined in this manner is inviolable, and during the period of her novitiate she is forbidden, if single, to enter the house of her parents, and, if married, that of her husband. This inviolability, while it gives women opportunities of gratifying an illicit passion, at the same time serves occasionally to save the persecuted slave, or neglected wife, from the ill treatment of the lord and master; for she has only to go through the conventional form of possession and an asylum is assured.”

The reader will, I think, notice a closer relationship to the customs of West Africa in India than in Western Asia, but we must remember that we have much more evidence on such customs in India and Africa than in Babylonia, Syria and Phoenicia. In Western Asia we have no account of the initiation and duties taught to the new votary, so we cannot make sufficiently close comparisons.

There are undoubtedly instances of the past existence of somewhat similar institutions to those we have been considering in other parts of the world – such as Peru, Mexico, Borneo, Japan, etc. The evidence has been collected, and references given, by John Main in “his” Religious Chastity, New York, 1913, pp. 136-181.

Now that we have considered our subject in countries other than India we feel in a better position to theorise as to the origin of the institution of the dēva-dāsī.

The basis on which all such systems rest seems to be the natural desire to ensure fertility in both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Environment, changing sentiment, temperament and religious feeling account for the particular channel into which such a system, touching the human passions so closely, has run.

Different conditions may produce quite different schools of thought in exactly the same place. Old customs may be followed by modern people with little idea of why they follow them.

In India the system of caste, the status of women, suttee, śrāddha and numerous other customs already mentioned in the Ocean of Story have all left their mark on such an institution as that of the dēva-dāsī.

More than this it is impossible to say. Much research still remains to be done on this highly important anthropological problem.

[1] See F. S. Growse, Mathurā: A District Memoir, 2nd edition, 1880. Published by the N.W. Provinces & Oudh Government Press.

[2] See R. Pischel and K. F. Geldner, Vedische Studien. Stuttgart, 1888-1889, I, xxv, pp. 196, 275, 309 et seq.; ii, p. 120; also A. A. Macdonell and A. B. Keith, A Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, London, 1912 , i, p. 395; ii, p. 480 et seq.

[3] See index volume to the English translation of the Jātaka stories under the word “courtesan.” Cambridge, 1913.

[4] See the English translation by R. Shama Sastri in Mysore Review, 1906- 1909, Books I-IV, and Indian Antiquary, 1909-1910, Books V-XV; also list of modern articles, etc., on the Arthaśāstra on pp. 679,680 of vol. i of the Cambridge History of India, 1922. Both author and date are, however, still doubtful.

[5] See J. J. Meyer, Kāvyasaingraha: erotische und exoterische Lieder. Metrische Übersetzungen aus indischen und anderen Sprachen. Leipzig [1903]. Das Weib im altindischen Epos. Ein Beitrag zur indischen und zur vergleichenden Kulturgeschiclite. Leipzig, 1915. Also R. Schmidt, Beiträge zur Indischen Erotik;das Liebesleben des Sanskritvolkes nach den Quellen dargestellt. Leipzig, 1902; Berlin, 1911.

[6] See Kāma Ṣāstra Society (R. F. Burton and F. F. Arbuthnot) edition, 1883, and that by K. R. Iyengar, Mysore, 1921. Details of various articles on the Kāma Sūtra and its author will be found in my Bibliography of Sir Richard F. Burton, London, 1923, pp. 166-171.

[7] Thurston in his Castes and Tribes of Southern India, vol. ii, p. 125, says that old Hindu works give seven classes of dēva-dāsī, but gives no reference.

[8] Edited by H. H. Wilson, G. Bühler and P. Peterson, and freely translated by P. W. Jacob.

[9] Apart from the earlier European translations see that by A. W. Ryder, issued in 1905 by the Harvard University. It forms vol. ix of the Harvard Oriental Series.

[10] The extract is from p. 76 of Early Ideas:A Group of Hindoo Stories, 1881, by “Anaryan” – that is to say, by F. F. Arbuthnot. He was helped in his translations by Edward Rehatsek, who assisted both Burton and Arbuthnot in the Kāma Ṣāstra Society publications.

[11] See the German translation by J. J. Meyer, 1903 [Altindische Schelmen-bücher, ii], and Les Legons de l' Entremetteuse, by Louis de Langle, Bibliothèque des Curieux, Paris, 1920, p. 127 to end.

[12] For the English translation see the edition of the Kāma Ṣāstra Society (Burton and Arbuthnot), 1885. Further details will be found in my Burton Bibliography, 1923, pp. 171-173.

[13] Translated by J. J. Meyer, 1903 [ Altindische Schelmenbücher, i].

[14] Le Bréviaire de la Courtisane, Louis de Langle, Bibliothèque des Curieux, Paris, 1920, pp. 1-126.

[15] Ā’īn-i- Akbarī, Abū-1-Fazl, Blochmann and Jarrett, Biblio. Indica. Calcutta, 1873, 1891, 1894 (3 vols.).

[16] Bholanāth Chandra, Travels, ii, 68 et seq. W. H. Sleeman, Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official, ii, 333 et seq. 1844. A. Cunningham, Archaeological Reports, ii, 370; xxi, 110.

[17] Manucci, Storia do Mogor, edited by W. Irvine. Indian Text Series. London, 1907. See vol. ii, p. 9.

[18] Muntakhabu-l-lubāb (H. Elliot, History of India. London, 1867-1877, vol. vii, p. 283).

[19] W. Crooke, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, 4 vols., Calcutta, 1896. See vol. i, p. 245; vol. ii, p. 379 et seq.; and vol. iv, p. 364 et seq.

[20] Hastings’ Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. x, 1918. See article on “ Prostitution,” by W. Crooke, p. 406 et seq.

[21] “The Gypsies of Bengal,” Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London, vol. iii, pp. 120-133.

[22] The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, vol. i,. p. 245; vol. iv, pp. 56-80.

[23] Translated from the Chinese and annotated by Hirth and Rockhill, St Petersburg Printing Office of the Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1911.

[24] See Henri Cordier’s Marco Polo,Notes and Addenda, 1920 , pp. 115, 11 6 .

[25] Travels of Tavernier, translated by V. Ball, 2 vols,. 1889. See vol. i, pp. 157, 158.

[26] A View of the History, Literature and Religion of the Hindoos, 2nd edition, Serampore, 1815-1818. See vol. ii, p. 327.

[27] Orissa, 2 vols., 1872, and District Gazetteer of Puri, 1908. See also p. 355 et seq. of Yule and Burnell’s Hobson Jobson, London, 1886.

[28] R. V. Russell, The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India, 4 vols., London, 1916 . See under the word “ Kasbi,” vol. iii, p. 373.

[29] The number 108 is mystical among both Brāhmans and Buddhists. Thus at Gautama’s birth the number of Brāhmans summoned to foretell his destiny was 108; there are 108 shrines of special sanctity in India; there are 108 Upaniṣads; 108 rupees is a usual sum for a generous temple or other donation. In Tibet and China we also find 108 occurring as a sacred or mystic number in connection with architecture, ritual and literature. See Yule’s Marco Polo, vol. ii, p. 347, London, 1903.

[30] Sir H. Risley, Tribes and Castes of Bengal, art. “Vaiṣṇava,” Calcutta, 1891.

[31] Op. cit., vol. iii, p. 383.

[32] Syed Siraj Ul Hassan, The Tribes and Castes of H.E.H. the Nizams Dominions [Hyderabad], Bombay, 1920. See vol. i, p. 91 et seq.

[33] In the Central Provinces we saw that this worship was made in the spring, not the autumn.

[34] Siraj Ul Hassan, op. cit., p. 94.

[35] See the Ethnographical Survey of Bombay, monograph 60, Bhāvins and Devlis, 190.9; and monograph 92, Dāsa, 1907. Reference should also be made to Kennedy’s Criminal Classes of Bombay, 1908, pp. 13, 122, 274 and 283, and to R. E. Enthoven’s Tribes and Castes of Bombay, 3 vols., 1920 .

[36] E. Hultzsch, South Indian Inscriptions, vol. ii, Part III, pp. 259-303, Archæological Survey of India, Madras, 1895.

[37] 26,755 square metres.

[38] Yule and Cordier, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 1903, vol. ii, pp. 345-346. See also p. 335 for identification of the places visited by Polo.

[39] (a) Nicolo Conti (1420). See his account in India in the Fifteenth Century, (Part II, p. 23), R. H. Major: No. 22 of Series 1 of the Hakluyt Society publications, 1858. (b) ‘Abdu-r Razzāq (1443). See Elliot’s History of India, vol. iv, p. 89 et seq.; also first section of Major’s work quoted above, (c) Domingos Paes (1522). See A Forgotten Empire, R. Sewell, 1900, p. 236 etseq. (d) Fernäo Nuniz (1537). See A Forgotten Empire, p. 291 et seq.

[40] For further information on Vijayanagar see S. K. Ayyangar, Sources of Vijayanagar History, Madras University Series, 1919. Also see the various articles, etc., quoted by V. A. Smith in his Oxford History of India, 1919, pp. 319, 320.

[41] Details of these travellers’ works with reference to the dēva-dāsīs can be found in Hobson Jobson, Yule and Burnell, 1886. See under “ dancing-girl,” dēva-dāsī, bayadere, “ nautch-girl,” cunchurree.

[42] From the third edition, with notes by Henry K. Beauchamp, Oxford, 1906, pp. 585-587.

[43] A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar, 3 vols., London, 1807.

[44] Memoirs read before the Anthropological Society of London, 1867-1869, vol. iii, London, 1870, pp. 182-194. The word bayadère is merely a French form of the Portuguese bailadeira, from bailar = to dance.

[45] “Basivis: Women who through Dedication to a Deity assume Masculine Privileges,” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, vol. ii, 1892, pp. 322-345. This is followed by a note on the same subject by Dr W. Dymock (pp. 345, 346) and an appendix (pp. 346-353).

[46] Five is a mystical number. It consists of 2 + 3, the first even and first odd numbers – i.e. if unity is God alone, 2 = diversity, while 3 = 1 +2 = unity and diversity. Thus the two principles of nature are represented.

Mankind has five senses. The Brāhmans worship the five products of the cow. Śiva has five aspects. The Dravidians recognise five divine foods, the Assamese five essentials for worship, and the Avestan doctrine five divisions of human personality. Five wards off the evil eye among the Mohammedans, and, being considered lucky by the Romans, entered into their wedding ceremonies.

[47] This plant, which is used in India as a substitute for saffron and other yellow dyes, always plays an important part in marriage ceremonies – not only in India, but also in ancient Greece. It has a distinct erotic significance and has magical properties ascribed to it. See the paper by Dr W. Dymock on “The Use of Turmeric in Hindoo Ceremonial” in the Journal of the Anthropological Society of Bombay, p. 441 et seq. of the volume quoted in note 1 above.

[48] In the order given they form Nos. 22, 17, 13, 11, 3, 1 and 20 of a series of short pamphlets issued by the Ethnographical Survey of Mysore, Bangalore, 1906-1911.

[49] Castes and Tribes of Southern India, by Edgar Thurston and K. Rangachari, Madras, 1909, vol. ii, pp. 125-153. See also Ethnographic Notes in Southern India, by Thurston, Madras, 1906, pp. 35-41.

[50] Golden Bough, Adonis, Attis and Osiris, vol. i, p. 61.

[51] For further details of the Code see the articles on Babylonian law by C. H. W. Johns in Ency. Brit., vol. iii, p. 115 et seq., and Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. vii, p. 817 et seq. Special reference should be made to J. Kohler and A. Ungnad, Hammurabi’s Gesetz, Leipzig, 1909, and finally the Bibliography of p. 651 of the Cambridge Ancient History, vol. i, 1923.

[52] See D. G. Lyon, "The Consecrated Women of the Hammurabi Code,” in Studies in the History of Religions, presented to C. H. Toy, New York, 1912 , pp. 341-360. Both Lyon and Johns (Amer. Journ. Sem. Lang., vol. xix, 1902, pp. 96-107) tried to show that the temple women were chaste. This view has, however, been proved untenable by G. A. Barton (art. " Hierodouloi,” Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., vol. vi, p. 672 et seq.) and D. D. Luckenbill ("The Temple Women of the Code of Hammurabi,” in Amer. Journ. Sem. Lang., vol. xxxiv, 1917, pp. 1-12).

I am indebted to Mr R. Campbell Thomson for drawing my attention to the above papers, and to his own excellent chapter on " The Golden Age of Hammurabi” in the Cambridge Ancient History, vol. i, 1923, pp. 494-551, which has been of the greatest help in this appendix.

[53] See note on page 270.

[54] Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., vol. xxxi, p. 60 .

[55] Op. cit., vol. xxxi, pp. 22, 34.

[56] W. H. Ward, The Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, Washington, 1910, pp. l6l et seq., 296, 380, 387.

[57] D. G. Hogarth, Liverpool Ann. Arch., ii, 1909, p. 170, fig. 1.

[58] Engidu is now considered a more correct reading than Eabani.

[59] Schrader, Keilinschriftliche Bibliothek, 1878, vol. vi, p. 127.

[60] See Frazers Golden Bough, Attis, Adonis and Osiris, and the numerous articles in Hastings’ Ency. Rel. Eth., under such headings as “Babylonians and Assyrians,” “Heroes and Hero Gods,” “Tammuz” “Ishtar,” etc.

[61] Schrader, Keilins. Biblio., vol. vi, p. 86 et seq.

[62] Hastings’ Ency. Bel. Eth., vol. ii, p. 164 et seq., art. “ Atargatis.”

[63] A Mission to Gelele, vol. ii, p. 155.

[64] A. B. Ellis, The Ewe-speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa, London, 1890, p. 140 et seq.; and The Tshi-speaking Peoples of the Gold Coast of West Africa, London, 1887, pp. 120-138.

[65] Golden Bough, Attis, Adonis and Osiris, vol. i, pp. 65-70.

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