Part 75 (2/2)
”This principle, liberally interpreted by those interested, excuses all intrigues; in theory it is capable of accommodating itself to all cases, and in the practice of the Hindoos it does thus accommodate itself. It is based on the belief that the souls of men who die of ungratified desires flit about a long time as manes before transmigrating.”
Thus did the wily priests invoke the aid even of superst.i.tion to foster that national licentiousness by which they themselves profited most. Small wonder that the _Hitopadesa_ declared (92) that ”there is perhaps in all the world not a man who covets not his neighbor's wife;” or that the same collection of wise stories and maxims should take an equally low view of feminine morals (39, 40, 41, 54, 88); _e.g._ (in substance): ”Then only is a wife faithful to her husband, when no other man covets her.” ”Seek chast.i.ty in those women only who have no opportunity to meet a lover.” ”A woman's l.u.s.t can no more be satisfied than a fire's greed for wood, the ocean's thirst for rivers, death's desire for victims.” Another verse in the _Hitopadesa_ (13) declares frankly that of the six good things in the world two of them are a caressing wife and a devoted sweetheart beside her--upon which the editor, Johannes Hertel, comments: ”To a Hindoo there is nothing objectionable in such a sentiment.”
WHAT HINDOO POETS ADMIRE IN WOMEN
The Hindoo's inability to rise above sensuality also manifests itself in his admiration of personal beauty, which is purely carnal. No. 217 of Hala's anthology declares:
”Her face resembles the moon, the juice of her mouth nectar; but wherewith shall I compare (my delight) when I seize her, amid violent struggles, by the head and kiss her?”
Apart from such grotesque comparisons of the face to the moon, or of the teeth to the lotos, there is nothing in the amorous hyperbole of Hindoo poets that rises above the voluptuous into the neighborhood of esthetic admiration. Hindoo statues embodying the poets' ideal of women's waists so narrow that they can be spanned by the hand, show how infinitely inferior the Hindoos were to the Greeks in their appreciation of human beauty. The Hindoo poet's ideal of feminine beauty is a wasp-waist and grossly exaggerated bust and hips.
Bhavabhuti allows his heroine Malati to be thus addressed (by a girl!):
”The wind, sandal-cool, refreshes your moon-face, in which nectar-like drops of perspiration appear from your walking, during which you lifted your feet but slowly, as they wavered under the weight of your thighs, which are strong as those of an elephant.”
Usually, of course, these grotesquely coa.r.s.e compliments are paid by the enamored men. Kalidasa makes King Pururavas, crazed by the loss of Urvasi, exclaim:
”Have you seen the divine beauty, who is compelled by the weight of her hips to walk slowly, and who never sees the flight of youth, whose bosom is high and swelling, whose gait is as the swan's?”
In another place he refers to her footsteps ”pressed in deeper behind by the weight of the beloved's hips,” Satyavant has no other epithet for Savitri than ”beautiful-hipped.” It is the same with Sakuntala's lover (who has been held up as an ancient embodiment of modern ethereal sentiment). What does he admire in Sakuntala? ”Here,” he says, ”in the yellow sand are a number of fresh footsteps; they are higher in front, but depressed behind by the weight of her hips.” ”How slow was her gait--and naturally so, considering the weight of her hips.” Compare also the poet's remarks on her bodily charms when the king first sees her.[284] Among all of the king's hyperbolic compliments and remarks there is not one that shows him to be fascinated by anything but the purely bodily charms of the young girl, charms of a coa.r.s.e, voluptuous kind, calculated to increase _his_ pleasure should he succeed in winning her, while there is not a trace of a desire on his part to make _her_ happy. Nor is there anything in Sakuntala's symptoms rising above selfish distress at her uncertainty, or selfish longing to possess her lover. In a word, there is no romantic love, in our sense of the word, in the dramas of the most romantic poet of the most romantic nation of antiquity.[285]
THE OLD STORY OF SELFISHNESS
It might be maintained that the symptoms of true affection--altruistic devotion to the verge of self-sacrifice--are revealed, at any rate, in the _conjugal_ love of Savitri and of Damayanti. Savitri follows the G.o.d of death as he carries away her husband's spirit, and by her devotion and entreaties persuades Yama to restore him to life; while Damayanti (whose story we did not finish) follows her husband, after he has gambled away all his kingdom, into the forest to suffer with him. One night, while she sleeps, he steals half of her only garment and deserts her. Left alone in the terrible forest with tigers and snakes, she sobs aloud and repeatedly faints away from fear. ”Yet I do not weep for myself,” she exclaims; ”my only thought is, how will you fare, my royal master, being left thus all alone?” She is seized by a huge snake, which coils its body around her; yet ”even in this situation she thinks not so much of herself as she bewails the fate of the king.” A hunter saves her and proceeds to make improper advances, but she, faithful to her lord, curses the hunter and he falls dead before her. Then she resumes her solitary roaming in the gloomy forest, ”_distressed by grief for her husband's fate_,” unmindful of his cruelty, or of her own sad plight.
It is needless to continue the tale; the reader cannot be so obtuse as not to notice the _moral_ of it. The stories of Savitri and of Damayanti, far from exemplifying Hindoo conjugal devotion, simply afford fresh proof of the hoggish selfishness of the male Hindoo. They are intended to be _object-lessons_ to wives, teaching them--like the laws of Manu and the custom of widow burning--that they do not exist for their own sakes, but for their husbands. Reading the stories in the light of this remark, we cannot fail to note everywhere the subtle craft of the sly men who invented them. If further evidence were needed to sustain my view it would be found in the fact related by F.
Reuleaux, that to this day the priests arrange an annual ”prayer-festival” of Hindoo women at which the wife must in every way show her subjection to her husband and master. She must wash his feet, dry them, put a wreath around his neck, and bring offerings to the G.o.ds, praying that _he_ may prosper and live long. Then follows a meal for which she has prepared all _his_ favorite dishes. And as a climax, _the story of Savitri is read_, a story in which the wife lives only for the husband, while he, as he rudely tells her--after all her devotion--_lives only for his parents_!
If these stories were anything else than slyly planned object-lessons calculated to impress and subjugate the women, why is it that the _husband_ is never chosen to act the self-sacrificing part? He does, indeed, sometimes indulge in frantic outbursts of grief and maudlin sentimentality, but that is because he has lost the young woman who pleased his senses. There is no sign of soul-love here; the husband never dreams of devoting his life to her, of sacrificing it for her sake, as she is constantly exhorted to do for his sake. In a word, masculine selfishness is the keynote of Hindoo life. ”When in danger, never hesitate to sacrifice your goods and your wife to save your life,” we read in the _Hitopadesa_ (25); and No. 4112 of Boehtlingk's _Hindu Maxims_ declares bluntly that a wife exists for the purpose of bearing sons, and a son for the purpose of offering sacrifices after his father's death. There we have masculine selfishness in a nutsh.e.l.l.
Another maxim declares that a wife can atone for her lack or loss of beauty by faithful subjection to her husband. And in return for all the devotion expected of her she is utterly despised--considered unworthy of an education, unfit even to profess virginity--in a word, looked on ”as scarcely forming a part of the human species.” In the most important event in her life--marriage--her choice is never consulted. The matter is, as we have seen, left to the family barber, or to the parents, to whom questions of caste and wealth are of infinitely more importance than personal preferences. When those matters are arranged the man satisfies himself concerning the inclinations of the chosen girl's _kindred_, and when a.s.sured that he will not ”suffer the affront of a refusal” from _them_ he proceeds with the offer and the bargaining. ”To marry or to buy a girl are synonymous terms in this country,” says Dubois (I., 198); and he proceeds, to give an account of the bargaining and the disgraceful quarrels this leads to.
BAYADeRES AND PRINCESSES AS HEROINES
Under such circ.u.mstances the Hindoo playwrights must have found themselves in a curious dilemma. They were sufficiently versed in the poetic art to build up a plot; but what chance for an amorous plot was there in a country where there was no courts.h.i.+p, where women were sold, ignored, maltreated, and despised? Perforce the poets had to neglect realism, give up all idea of mirroring respectable domestic life, and take refuge in the realms of tradition, fancy, or liaisons.
It is interesting to note how they got around the difficulty. They either made their heroines bayaderes, or princesses, or girls willing to be married in a way allowing them their own choice, but not reputed respectable. Bayaderes, though not permitted to marry, were at liberty to choose their temporary companions. Cudraka indulges in the poetic license of making Vasantasena superior to other bayaderes and rewarding her in the end by a regular marriage as the hero's wife number two. By way of securing variety, apsaras, or celestial bayaderes, were brought on the scene, as in Kalidasa's _Urvasi_, permitting the poet to indulge in still bolder flights of fancy.
Princesses, again, were favorite heroines, for various reasons, one of which was the tradition concerning the custom called Svayamvara or ”Maiden's Choice”--a princess being ”permitted,” after a tournament, to ”choose” the victor. The story of _Nala and Damayanti_ has made us familiar with a similar meeting of kings, at which the princess chooses the lover she has determined on beforehand, though she has never seen him. Apart from the fantasticality of this episode, it is obvious that even if the Svayamvara was once a custom in royal circles it did not really insure to the princesses free choice of a rational kind. Brought up in strict seclusion, a king's daughter could never have seen any of the men competing for her. The victor might be the least sympathetic to her of all, and even if she had a large number of suitors to choose from, her selection could not be based on anything but the momentary and superficial judgment; of the eye. But for dramatic purposes the Svayamvara was useful.
VOLUNTARY UNIONS NOT RESPECTABLE
In _Sakuntala_, Kalidasa resorts to the third of the expedients I have mentioned. The king weds the girl whom he finds in the grove of the saints in accordance with a form which was not regarded as respectable--marriage based on mutual inclination, without the knowledge of the parents. The laws of Mann (III., 20-134) recognized eight kinds of marriage:
(1) gift of a daughter to a man learned in the Vedas, (2) gift of a daughter to a priest; (3) gift of a daughter in return for presents of cows, etc.; (4) gift of a daughter, with a dress. In these four the father gives away his daughter as he chooses. In (5) the groom buys the girl with presents to her kinsmen or herself; (6) is voluntary union; (7) forcible abduction (in war); (8) rape of a girl asleep, or drunk, or imbecile.
In other words, of the eight kinds of marriage recognized by Hindoo law and custom only one is based on free choice, and of that Mann says: ”The voluntary connection of a maiden and a man is to be known as a Gandharva union, which arises from l.u.s.t.” It is cla.s.sed among the blamable marriages. Even this appears not to have been a legal form before Mann. It is blamable because contracted without the consent or knowledge of the parents, and because, unless the sacred fire has been obtained from a Brahman to sanctify it, such a marriage is merely a temporary union. Gandharvas, after whom it is named, are singers and other musicians in Indra's heaven, who, like the apsaras, enter into unions that are not intended to be enduring, but are dissoluble at will. Such marriages (liaisons we call them) are frequently mentioned in Hindoo literature (_e.g., Hitopadesa_, p. 85). Malati (30) chides her friend for advising her to make a secret marriage, and later on exclaims (75): ”I am lost! What a girl must not do, my friend counsels me.” The orthodox view is unfolded by the Buddhist nun Kamandaki(33): ”We hear of Duschyanta loving Sakuntala, of Pururavas loving Urvasi ... but these cases look like arbitrary action and cannot be commended as models.” In _Sakuntala_, too, the king feels it inc.u.mbent on him to apologize to the girl he covets, when she bids him not to transgress the laws of propriety, by exclaiming that many other girls have thus been taken by kings without incurring parental disapproval. The directions for this form of courts.h.i.+p given in the _Kama Soutra_ indicate that Sakuntala had every reason to appeal to the rules of propriety, social and moral. Kalidasa spares us the details.
The king's desertion of Sakuntala after he had obtained his self-indulgent object was quite in accordance with the spirit of a Gandharva marriage. Kalidasa, for dramatic purposes, makes it a result of a saint's curse, which enables him to continue his story interestingly. A poet has a right to such license, even though it takes him out of the realm of realism. Hindoo poets, like others, know how to rise above sordid reality into a more ideal sphere, and for this reason, even if we had found in the dramas of India a portrayal of true love, it would not prove that it existed outside of a poet's glowing and prophetic fancy. There is a Hindoo saying, ”Do not strike a woman, even with a flower;” but we have seen that these Hindoos often do physically abuse their wives most cruelly, besides subjecting them to indescribable mental anguish, and mental anguish is much more painful and more prolonged than bodily torture. Fine words do not make fine feelings. From this point of view Dalton was perhaps right when he a.s.serted that the wild tribes of India come closer to us in their love-affairs than the more cultured Hindoos, with their ”unromantic heart-schooling.” We have seen that Albrecht Weber's high estimate of the Hindoo's romantic sentiment does not bear the test of a close psychological a.n.a.lysis.
<script>