[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.c5.337 # Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.337 Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.337 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c5.337](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.337) Once the gods made a great sacrifice ; Yama was the slaying priest ; he now utterly neglected his office as god of death ; creatures no longer died, and their numbers brought anxiety. There was no longer any distinction between mortals and immortals. Then went the gods to Brahma to complain to him of this distress. He consoled them by telling them that Yama would split up his personality, and they were now to fill this second half with their power, and thus it would bring death to beings. In content the gods went to the sacrifice. Then they saw on the Gaṅgā a lotus-flower. The hero among them, Indra, was sent off to find out whence it came. He saw a glorious woman weeping at the source of the Gaṅgā, and her tears as they dropped became golden lotus-flowers. He asked her the reason of her sorrow. She led him on to the mountain top. There he saw a handsome youth playing dice together with a young lady ; as the youth, however, in his eagerness to play gave him no heed whatever, the king of the gods grew angered, and boasted of being lord of the world. The youth laughed at him, and looked at him. At this Indra became as stiff as a tree-stump. Çiva (this was the dicing hero) bade the woman that shed tears of golden lotuses to take the haughty one into a cave in the mountain.¹ There he saw four shining figures sitting, like him down to the last hair. At the sight of them he was gripped by sorrow : “Shall I perhaps become like these ?” Angrily Çiva told him that these were four earlier Indras that had been as haughty, too, as he. For this they had all had to come into human life, and would bring about great deeds in it. The four Indras begged : “May the gods of right and of the wind, Indra and the two Açvins, beget us.” Indra promised to give them a fifth as fellow, sprung from his seed. Now this is Arjuna, and his four brothers are the four former Indras. In kindness of heart Çiva also granted them the boon that that weeping woman, the goddess Lakshmī, should be their wife in mankind. She was then born in wondrous wise to Drupada out of the ground (mahītalāt). Vyāsa through his ascetic powers then endowed the king Drupada with the eye of a god ; so Drupada saw the five brothers and Draupadī in their heavenly forms, and was now fully contented. - [Previous: v1.c5.336](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.336) - [Next: v1.c5.338](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.338) - [Up: v1.c5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.337](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c5.337) · Pramāṇa