Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.238

v1.c5.238

³ Hopkins holds that this splendid knightly Svayamvara of the Epic is not a survival from earlier times, but a later growth, and he is probably quite right. He distinguishes, then, two kinds: the older primitive self-choice, and the later splendid form (JAOS, xiii, 168, 169, 357, 360). The fairest Svayamvara in the Epic, Sāvitrī’s, is on very simple lines, and only at it is the maiden quite free in choosing her husband. As we know, Sāvitrī drives in her chariot through the land and thus makes an inspection, a proceeding that by no means fits into the framework of the usual or court tales of the Svayamvara. In the house of King Māndhātar it is, at least according to his words, the custom for the daughters themselves to choose their husband in freedom. Wilson’s Vishṇupurāṇa, iii, 270.