Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.273

v1.c5.273

A dreadful slaughter did he deal out among the beasts of the wild, and hungry, thirsty, and weary he came into a forest swept through by a cool wind. It was covered with a right pleasant sward, was far-stretched, and made musical by surpassingly sweet-singing birds, and swarms of cicadas. Trees with mighty boughs and grateful shade filled it; the leaves ¹ quivered under the bees. There was no tree there but bore flowers and fruits, or that bristled with thorns, nor one but was covered with bees. The wind rocked the trees to and fro so that they kept on showering down a many-coloured rain of flowers. Up to the skies rose these forest giants resounding with sweet bird-song, but their boughs bent low under the burden of the flowers. Bough twined lovingly with bough. Spirit beings wandered through the forest, and the cool wind was wafted about it, sweet-smelling, carrying off the pollen from the flowers, and drew nigh the trees, as though minded to sport in love with them. And in the midst of this forest paradise there the king saw an incomparable penitent’s grove, like the world of the gods to behold. A splendid, cool, and mighty stream clasped this settlement like a mother, abounding in sandbanks with loving couples of cakrayāka, carrying flowers ² along like foam. Wonderful as this whole forest was this abode of ascetics, throughout which holy men were giving themselves up to good works, and where, as in Indra’s heaven, hunger and thirst at once were lifted from the king, while welling joy filled his heart. He wished to visit the holy Kaṇva, the head of the forest brethren, but found him not, but found a young girl in penitent’s garb, who came to meet him, on his calling, like the embodied goddess of beauty and happiness. She gave him friendly welcome and showed him the honours of hospitality. On his asking where Kaṇva was, she answered : “My father, the holy man, has gone forth from the hermitage to get fruit. Wait a moment, and thou wilt see him.” The king was filled with great wonder at her beauty, and moral excellence, and spoke : “ Who art thou, and whose daughter, thou with the lovely hips ? Wherefore art thou come into the forest ? Whence is thy descent, thou that art gifted with such beauty ? At the sight of thee only, thou hast taken my heart from me. I would fain come to know thee ; therefore tell me, thou shining one.” She told him she was Kaṇva’s daughter. But the prince answered : “ The holy man is held in honour in the world as a keeper of strictest chastity. Even the god of virtue might fall from good ways, but not this man of the strict vow. How then art thou his daughter ? ” Çakuntalā now told him how the gods had sent the Apsaras Menakā to lead that dangerous penitent astray, the king Viçvāmitra, and how she was sprung from this union, had been exposed by her mother, and had been brought up by Kaṇva as his own daughter. Dushyanta spoke : “ Quite clearly thou art a prince’s daughter, after what thou sayest, sweet one. Be my wife, thou of the lovely hips. Say, what can I do for thee ? Now will I bring thee a golden wreath, garments, ear-rings, all of gold, gleaming jewels and pearls from various cities, and breast-ornaments and skins too. The whole kingdom shall be thine now. Be my wife, O shining one. Come to me through the Gandharva marriage, O lovely one ; for of marriages that of the Gandharvas is declared to be the best, O maiden with thighs like plantain-stems.” Çakuntalā spoke : “ My father has left this hermitage to fetch fruit ; wait a moment, O king, then he will give me to thee.” Dushyanta spoke : “ I wish thee, O lovely-hipped one, thee that art without blemish, to give thyself to me in love. Know thou, it is for thy sake that I am at all, for it is on thee that my mind is bent. Only self is akin to self, and only self is the refuge of self. May thou thyself according to law and justice give me thine own self.¹ Eight