Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.329

v1.c5.329

of an elder sister married after the younger one must do atonement with Kṛcchra and Atikṛcchra (as in Parāçara the elder brother does with doubled Kṛcchra), and hand over his wife to the husband of the younger one (probably only in form, but see Bühler’s note SBE, xiv, p. 103). That the greater shame should lie mostly on the elder brother and the husband of the re-married sister seems understandable. The snushām in MBh. (in itself remarkable) might be therefore a later garbling for an earlier jāyām. In the end, however, it would be better to take Nīlakaṇṭha’s snushātvena to be wrong, and to translate : “ The re-married man shall offer (in marriage) this daughter-in-law (to the elder brother).” The elder brother, indeed, is like the father.