[INDOLOGY] Searching for a little-known Nyāya

[Walter Slaje]

Dear Colleagues,


I am searching for textual evidence of a little-known Nyāya.


In an article by Soutik Biswas “Why India's sanitation crisis kills women”
(BBC News India, 30 May 2014), it was claimed that “Several studies have
shown that women without toilets at home are vulnerable to sexual violence
when travelling to and from public facilities or open fields. [...]“. One
mother told researchers, “We have had *one-on-one fights with thugs in
order to save our daughters from getting raped*. It then becomes a fight
that either you [the thug] *kill me to get to my daughter*, or you back
off.”


This courageous behaviour of mothers fighting for her girls at the risk of
their own lives reminds one of the *śaśī-sarpa-nyāya* (“the bunny and the
snake”), known to some by hearsay only, but not (yet) traceable. The
generalization here lies certainly in the fact that a (physically weaker)
female (*śaśī*) effectively fights a (physically stronger) male (*sarpa*).
The latter would be the aggressor(s), the victim(s) the (female) bunny
and/or her young.


The rare feminine formation *śaśī* causes no real trouble, as occurrences
of the word are anyway testified in the *Mokṣopāya* (VI.34.103) and in
Ratnākaraśānti’s *Vidagdhavismāpana* (175) [written communication by Roland
Steiner].


In connection of the very idea behind this nyāya, I should also like to add
that Gandhi could indeed have been aware of a similar popular maxim, as he
refers explicitly to “the violence of *the mouse against the cat*“, writing
that


“A girl who attacks her assailant with her nails, if she has grown them, or
with her teeth, *if she has them* [? W.S.], is almost non-violent (...).
Her violence is the violence of the mouse against the cat.“ (Harijan, 0
8-09-1940).


On the other hand, Gandhi had

„(...) always held that it is physically impossible to violate a woman
against her will. (…) If she cannot meet the assailant’s physical might,
her purity will give her the strength to die before he succeeds in
violating her. (…) I know that women are capable of throwing away their
lives for a much lesser purpose.” (Harijan, 25-08-1940).


The statement in the last paragraph, only cited for its somewhat
conflicting character with the first one, would, if further pursued,
however lead into an entirely different matter, better not to be touched.


I would be fully satisfied if someone among this learned community could
contribute to the mysterious* śaśīsarpanyāya*, on- or off-list.



Thanking you,

WS


-----------------------------
Prof. Dr. Walter Slaje
Hermann-Löns-Str. 1
D-99425 Weimar
Deutschland

Ego ex animi mei sententia spondeo ac polliceor
studia humanitatis impigro labore culturum et provecturum
non sordidi lucri causa nec ad vanam captandam gloriam,
sed quo magis veritas propagetur et lux eius, qua salus
humani generis continetur, clarius effulgeat.
Vindobonae, die XXI. mensis Novembris MCMLXXXIII.


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