Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.342

v1.c5.342

Draupadī. He has also the holy duty to take leave of his eldest brother. After long wrestling with his conscience Arjuna decides for the higher duty; he goes in and fetches the weapons. After he has run the robbers to earth, he comes home again to the sound of rejoicings, and makes ready for his long exile in chastity. Yudhishṭhira is utterly overwhelmed, declares he bears him no anger whatever, and that all is well. “For if the younger goes in to the elder (while the latter is with the woman) then that is no harm or wrong (upaghāta); but if the elder goes in to the younger, then that is a breach of the holy ordinance.” But Arjuna in his true boyish way rises proudly up, and shouts: “How should I swerve from the truth!” For Draupadī this parade of virtue must have been the more unpleasing in that she did not fully share in the disinterestedness of the brothers; she is accused of having preferred Arjuna, and has to atone for it at the great departure for heaven (xiv, 87.10; xvii, 2.3 ff.).