The Brahman priests, who certainly knew their people well, had so
little faith in their virtue that they would not accept a girl to be
brought up for temple service if she was over five years old. She had
to be not only pure but physically flawless and sound in health. Yet
her purity was not valued as a virtue, but as an article of commerce.
The Brahmans utilized the charms of these girls for the purpose of
supporting the temples with their sinful lives, their gains being
taken from them as "offerings to the gods." As soon as a girl was old
enough she was put up at auction and sold to the highest bidder. If
she was specially attractive the bids would sometimes reach fabulous
sums, it being a point of honor and eager rivalry among Rajahs and
other wealthy men, young and old, to become the possessors of bayadère
débutantes. Temporarily only, of course, for these girls were never
allowed to marry. While they were connected with the temple they could
give themselves to anyone they chose, the only condition being that
they must never refuse a Brahman (Jacolliot, 169-76). The bayadères,
says Dubois, call themselves Deva-dasi, servants or slaves of the
gods, "but they are known to the public by the coarser name of
strumpets." They are, next to the sacrificers, the most important
persons about the temples. While the poor widows who had been
respectably married are deprived of all ornaments and joys of life,
these wantons are decked with fine clothes, flowers, and jewelry; and
gold is showered upon them. The bayadères Vasantasena is described by
the poet Cûdraka as always wearing a hundred gold ornaments, living in
her own palace, which has eight luxurious courts, and on one occasion
refusing an unwelcome suitor though he sent 100,000 gold pieces.
Bayadères are supposed to be originally descendants of the apsaras, or
dancing girls of the god Indra, the Hindoo Jupiter. In reality they
are recruited from various castes, some parents making it a point to
offer their third daughter to the Brahmans. Bands of the bayadères are
engaged by the best families to provide dancing and music, especially
at weddings. To have dealings with bayadères is not only in good form,
but is a meritorious thing, since it helps to support the temples. And
yet, when one of these girls dies she is not cremated in the same
place as other women, and her ashes are scattered to the winds. In
some provinces of Bengal, Jacolliot says, she is only half burnt, and
the body then thrown to the jackals and vultures.
The temple of Sunnat had as many as five hundred of these priestesses
of Venus, and a Rajah has been known to entertain as many as two
thousand of them. Bayadères, or Nautch girls, as they are often called
in a general way, are of many grades. The lowest go about the country
in bands, while the highest may rise to the rank and dignity of an
Aspasia. To the former class belong those referred to by Lowrie
(148)--a band of twenty girls, all unveiled and dressed in their
richest finery, who wanted to dance for his party and were greatly
disappointed when refused. "Most of them were very young--about ten or
eleven years old." Their course is brief; they soon lose their charms,
are discarded, and end their lives as beggars.