two queries

[Stefan Baums]

Dear Jonathan,

> I remember reading decades ago a reference in a Buddhist 
> text--which I *think* I remember to have been in Pali, of a man
> offering betel to a woman as a sexual overture.

maybe the passage you are thinking of is Ja I 291 ff. 
(Aṇḍabhūtajātakavaṇṇanā). There a ‘dhutta’ (rogue) gives 
‘tambūlatakkolakādīni ceva nānāpupphāni ca’ (betel and takkola 
perfume etc. as well as various flowers) to a ‘māṇavikā’ (brahman 
girl), with the result, a page down, that ‘purohite bahi nikkhante 
ubho abhiramanti tasmiṃ āgate dhutto nilīyati’ (when the purohita 
goes out the two of them dally, and when he came back the rogue 
hides himself).

All best,
Stefan

-- 
Stefan Baums
Asian Languages and Literature
University of Washington