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Royalty always indulged in a plurality of wives, often for political purposes ; and besides these 453, PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. stately ladies, many a humble and pretty attendant of the queen won the favour of the king and was punish- ed by her mistress. In spite of all this, the chief queen was always held in high honor and esteem ; she was the mistress of the household and the sharer of the king’s glory on every state occasion. Women in humbler life had, like queens, their inner apartments separate from those of men. The same custom was observed in Europe in the olden days of Rome and Pompei, and Sanscrit poets often describe the peaceful domestic life of the fair inmates of these apartments. But the absolute seclusion of women was unknown even in the Pauranik Period. Sakuntala and Malayavati did not precipitately retreat when strangers like Dushyanta and Jimdtav4hana appeared before them. Malati in the bloom of her youth rode on an elephant to a temple on a festa] day, in the midst of a great concourse of citizens, and there met the youth to whom she gave away her heart, and who reciprocated the feeling. In the first or introductory book of Katha Sarit Sagara we find that Katydyana Vararuchi’s mother received two unknown Brahmans as her guest and freely conversed with them, and Varsha’s wife too had previously received the same strangers, and had narrated to them the story of her husband’s mis- fortunes. In the numerous tales contained in this voluminous work .of the 12th century A. D., we no where find any instance of women in. ordinary life CHAP. XIV.] EARLY, PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 459 being kept in such absolute and unhealthy seclusion as become the custom in later times under the rule of the Moslems. In Mrichchhakati, Charudatta’s virtuous and modest wife freely converses with Charudatta’s friend Maitreya, and in KAdamvart, in NagAnanda, in Ratna-— vali and in every other classical work we find the heroine frequently conversing with the friends of her husband, Ladies of the royal household were of course kept under a greater degree of restriction ; but even they _ were allowed to see the friends of the king. When the ' ministers of Naravahana Datta came to see his new queen Ratnaprabha, they” were announced before they were admitted to her presence. The queen rebelled even against this necessary formality and said, “The door must not again be closed against the entrance of my husband’s friends, for they are as dear to me as my own body.” (K. §. S.-Chap. 36.) _ Marviage was arranged by the parents of the bride _and the bridegroom. Thus when an offer of marriage was made to Jimdtavahana, his companion said, “Go to shis parents and ask them,” and the parents gave their consent without consulting the young man’s inclinations. If, however, we can trust the poets of the period,: the ceremony was often performed at a proper age. Malatf, the heroine of Bhavabhiti’s drama was still a maiden after she had reached her youth, Malavika and * Malay4vati and Ratnavalt were unmarried even when * they were in the bloom of their beauty, and the pious. 460 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BooK v. Rishi Kanva did not think of giving Sakuntala in ‘marriage until in youth she met Dushyanta and lost her heart. No doubt the custom of early marriage, of which -we find sanction in the later Dharma S4stras prevailed in many cases; but the custom had not become universal, and it was not considered a sin to keep a girl unmarried until she had attained her youth, The ceremony of ‘marriage was the same as it was in ancient days, and as it continues to the present day. The stepping round the fire, the offering of grain as sacrifice, and the utter- ance of some promises by the bride and the bridegroom were considered the essential rites. — ~ Girls were taught to read and to write, and there are numerous examples in the classical works of girls | writing and reading epistles. In Mrichchhakati, Maitreya says he always laughs when he hears a woman reading Sanscrit or a man singing a song; and however much Maitreya may have disliked it, there can be little doubt from the passage itself that women a#d often read Sans- rit as men did often learn to sing. Music is frequently alluded to as a female accomplishment. In one re- markable passage in NAgdnada we are told that the princess Malaydvatt sang a song, possessing the treble and bass tones duly developed ; and soon after we learn that she played with her fingers, keeping good time in due divisions of slow, medium and quick, the three pauses rendered in proper order, and the three modes of playing shewn in the slow and quick accompaniments. CHAP. XIV.] EARLY PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 465 In the Katha Sarit Sagara (Chapter IX) we learn that the princess MrigAvati attained wonderful skill in dancing, singing and other accomplishments before she was given in marriage. Numerous such eae are to be found i in classical literature. Painting too is frequently alluded to.as an accomplish ment possessed both by men and women; and we have already alluded toa passage in Nagdnanda shewing that coloured earth was used for painting in ancient India, as in ancient Pompei. Uttara Rama Charita opens with an account of some paintings which Lakshmana shewed to Sita: and we learn from the Katha Sarit Sagara (Chap- ter 122) that Nagara Svamin was the Painter- Laureate of the court of Vikramaditya, and presented the king with pictures illustrating different types of female beauty. Connubial love has never been described with deeper feeling than by the poets of India. We have already quoted the passage from Uttara Rama Charita describing ‘the tender love of Rama for Sitd ; and the reader familiar ’ with Sanscrit literature will na doubt call to mind hun- dreds of such passages pourtraying the regard and love of Hindu husbands and the devotion of Hindu wives.* ably represent them as amiable and affectionate. In this they might give a lesson to the bards of more lofty nations, and particularly to the Greeks who both in tragedy, and comedy pursued the fair sex with implacable rancour. Aristophanes is aot a whit behind Euripides, although he " sidioales the tragedian for his uagallant propensities,” Wilson, Zfeatre of the Hindus (London 1831) vol, i, p. 77. Wot, 462 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V. Domestic life, however, is not all poetry, and we get a truer idea of domestic sorrows and troubles from the tales in the Katha Sarit Sagara than from the poetry of Bhavabhiti or Kalidasa, Poverty, bereavement, the contempt or hatred of relations and neighbours, the cruelty of husbands or the uncontrolled temper of wives often poisoned the peace of home and made life a burden. Not the least galling of all evils were the differences and disputes amongst members of joint families, or the heartless cruelty of mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law towards a subgnissive wife. The gentle and virtuous Kirti Sena, suffering from such domestic tyranny, exclaimed in sorrow,—-“this is why relations lament the birth of a daughter, exposed to the terrors of the mothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.” (K. S. S. Chap. 29.) We have quoted passages in a previous chapter to shew that widows were not prohibited from marrying again in the Pauranik age. A droll story is told of the daughter of a householder of MAlava who married eleven husbands successively. And on the death of the eleventh husband the plucky widow. would pro- bably have welcomed a twelfth, but “even the stones could not help laughing at her,” so she took to the life of an ascetic. (K, S. S. Chap. 66.) We have spoken before of the love and devotion of Hindu wives. -With the decline. of the national spirit and of a due respect for women, this female devo- CHAP, XIV.} EARLY PAURANIK CIVILIZATION. 463 tion. degenerated into a barbarous custom in the Pauranik age, There is no allusion to the rite of Suttee in the. fiterature of India previous to the Pauranik Period ; there is ho mention of it in the Code of Mant ot even of Yajnavalkya. It is in Pauranik literature that we first trace the rise of this custom. “Suicide by entering the fire was known in India from the time of Alexander the Great, and even earlier: When in the Pauranik age the devotion of wives to their husbands was insisted upon to a greater extent than the regard of husbands for their wives, the:form of ‘ suicide spoken of above was recommended as a meri. torious act more to widows than to others. Thus Varahamihira praises women in his astronomy, . because they enter the fire on losing their husbands, while men go and marry again on losing their wives. Neverthe- léss, the. custom was not restricted to wonten or to widows, ever in the Pauranik age, In Malatt Madhava, Malatt’s father makes preparations for mounting the ‘funeral pyre for the gtief of his child; in Mrichchhakati_ Charudatta’s wife similarly prepares to mount’ the pyre when her husband was disgraced, and about to: “be executed ; and in N&gdnanda, Jimatavahana’s father, mother and wife resolve to perish on the pyre for the loss of the prince, - In the Katha Sarit Sagara we find a maiden disap- pointed in love preparing to enter the funeral pyre (Chapters 118 and 122). And turning from fiction to 464 PAURANIK PERIOD. [BOOK V.. history, we know that a king of Kanouj perished on the pyre, because he was disgraced in the eyes of his. countrymen for his frieodship for Mahmud of Guzni. It was in fact an ostentatious form of suicide when grief or disgrace became unsupportable, and life was cheer- less and void. Reprehensible as such suicide always was, it became a cowardice and a crime when men ceased to perform the rite, and imposed it as an honorable act for women alone, to be performed on the death of their husbands.