Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.333

v1.c5.333

was a task of heavy toil to justify this shocking moral defect of the chief heroes and the pillars of the Brahmanic Mahābhārata. The one explanation is this: When the five brothers, who are going about in Brahman garb, bring Draupadī to their mother, and show her to her, the mother does not notice what this bhikshā (alms) is, that she supposes has been brought home from the begging they ply, and says: “Enjoy it together.” The mistake has now been made once for all, and both she and her band of sons now think that the word of a mother is holy and must be held to, absolutely and after the letter. Moreover, they are all aflame with love for the wonderfully fair one, and so Yudhishṭhira deems that therefore they would rather all possess her together than that, through her, strife should come about among the brothers (i, 191). When now they tell Draupadī’s father of their polyandric intentions, who has naturally thought that Arjuna has won her and shall marry her, he along with his kinsfolk is deeply wounded in his moral feelings. He makes the strongest protest against such an unheard of adharma (lawlessness, wrong), conflicting with worldly custom and the Veda. Yudhishṭhira, however, has his usual Pilate saying ready to hand: “What is Dharma (right, the good)? No one can find his way in such a ticklish question. We take the path which our forefathers followed one after the other,” a way of speech, therefore, like that used of marriage by purchase in royal families, although in our passage it is quite likely that only a general view can be in question. Then a family council is held. Drupada, the father, keeps his ground: “I hold it for an adharma that is opposed to the world and the Veda. For one wife for many—there is no such thing. Neither did the high-souled forefathers have this custom,