[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915) › v1.c5.268 # Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.268 Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.268 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c5.268](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.268) In the so-called self-choice, therefore, the maiden has either no freedom whatever, or else only a restricted one. We meet with a less splendid, but much more beautiful form in the Svayaṃvara of Sāvitrī, who wanders about looking and seeking until her heart picks one out. But here likewise it is done at her father's instigation. It is with an unusual meaning, therefore, that the word is made use of in Rām., i, 32. The king Kuçanābha has a hundred daughters. "Now in the bloom of youth, with the gift of beauty, fair-decked, they went into the park, like autumn lightning, singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments. They, the maidens dight with splendid ornaments, found the greatest joy. Then the god of the wind saw them, and spoke. 'I love you, do ye all become my wives. Leave the abode and ways of mankind, and ye shall then win long life. For youth is always fleeting, especially in mankind. When ye have reached to a youth beyond harming, ye will become immortal.' But they laughed at him, and cried: 'May the time not come, O fool, when we, scorning our truth-speaking father, make use of self-choice after our own will. He to whom our father gives us shall be our husband.'" Here svayaṃvara = svayaṃgrahaṇa, the independent self-willed union of the maiden with the man. This is one of the dreadful happenings that come about before the end of a world. Thus we read in Mahābh., iii, 190.36: "No man any longer asks for the daughter, nor is the daughter given away; they take the man for themselves, when the end of the world (yugānta) is drawn nigh." - [Previous: v1.c5.267](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.267) - [Next: v1.c5.269](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.269) - [Up: v1.c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.268](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.268) · Pramāṇa