Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.346

v1.c5.346

It is, indeed, a strange thing to find a usage, which aroused the moral feelings of the Indian, unhesitatingly ascribed to this priest of the gods, Bṛhaspati, and to his brother, as also to other Ṛishis and holy women; and one feels tempted to look on such things as echoes from a time when, among even the Aryans also, group-marriage may have been a recognized institution. But such a conclusion would seem to be at least a highly uncertain one; for what stories are not told among the different peoples of gods and holy men! The Indian has often declared, in the Epic, too, that such divine figures as these are not tied down to the laws of earth, that mankind indeed must follow a loftier ethic than they. True, enlightened views such as these belong to a later time, of noble spiritual and emotional culture, and can hardly be assumed in the age