Sexual Life in Ancient India, by Professor J. J. Meyer
(Routledge, 36s.), is a carefully documented work from the Mahabharata and liamayana—those vast Hindu epics— dealing with the life of women. Originally published in German, the English translation of this book has been revised by the author himself, and is now in its full and final form. Although the book is decidedly one for the strident rather than the general reader, there are many passages in it such as the following : " In the Upanishads there is found instruc- tion how to beget a learned daughter, and in the same place Yajnavalkya initiates his wife into the deepest secrets of philosophy. Here Gargi (the wife) takes part in a philo- sophical congress, and of a truth is not dumb. How unspeak- ably ridiculous such a thing would have seemed to Plato or. Aristotle, or to a Council of the Fathers of the Church ! " —which will serve to disprove the old and persistent fallacy of the subjection of Indian women. But, although much Curious and some interesting information is to be found in Professor Meyer's pages, we cannot consider his work to be more than a compilation : it is too fragmentary to present a coherent picture of its subject.
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