Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.347

v1.c5.347

when such myths were being shaped, or in the days before it. And if for that earlier period, too, the same lofty character of at least some minds were to be assumed, such as shows itself already in the oldest Upanishad, that would prove nothing for or against the conditions that might be actually existing. Thus there is left always a certain doubt. But it is quite clear that, as it was, Draupadī’s marriage was reluctantly taken; and the words of Karṇa, the bitter foe, indeed, of the princess of Pañcāla, may not have stood so isolated in a more primitive form of the Epic: "One husband is appointed unto the wife by the gods. But this one yields herself into the power of more men than one, and therefore this is certain: She is an evil woman" (ii, 68.35).¹