These “great kings” assumed the part of deities who had an unlimited right of possession over the wives of the faithful--above all, the right of defloration. They proclaimed as the most perfect mode of honouring the god a complete surrender of the woman to the spiritual chief of the sect, for purposes of carnal lust--in exact imitation of the shepherdesses (“gopis”), the mistresses of the god Krishna. This took place during the pastoral games “rasmandali” in the autumn.[45] In addition, on account of his activity as deflorator, the priest received a present in the name of the deity. Abel Rémusat reports in his “Nouveaux Mélanges Asiatiques” (Paris, 1824, vol. i., p. 16 _et seq._), following the account of a Chinese author of the thirteenth century, the peculiar methods employed in Cambodia for the purpose of religious defloration. Here the priests of Buddha or the priests of the Tao religion were carried in sedan-chairs to the girls awaiting them. Each girl had a candle with a mark on it. The “tshin-than” (= adjustment of posture--that is, sexual intercourse) must be finished before the candle had burnt down to this mark! The medicine-men and wizards among the Caribs of Central and South America, the “piaches” or “pajes,” had to effect the defloration of the young girls;[46] whilst among other primitive peoples this right was assigned to the chiefs.[47] The talented and far-seeing Bachofen, one of the greatest of our investigators into the history and psychology of civilization, in his classical works upon “Matriarchy” and upon “The Legend of Tanaquil,” has very cleverly pointed out that religious prostitution in general arises from the primitive =opposition= to the individualization of love, instinctively felt by primitive peoples. In fact, in the religious view of sexual matters more value is placed upon the act than the person, the individual. Hence arises the slight esteem--so strongly opposed to our modern view--felt for physical and moral virginity in woman, which to us (whether rightly or not we will not now discuss) appears the symbol of feminine individuality. Waitz, Bachofen, Kulischer, Post, Ploss-Bartels, Rottmann, and other ethnologists, give additional accounts of the contempt, to us so remarkable, felt in primitive states for the virgin woman. The tragi-comic position of our own “old maids” is closely connected with this primeval sentiment.[48] The facts we have just given regarding single acts of religious prostitution will pave the way for the understanding of =permanent temple prostitution= as a historical phenomenon.