Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.48

v1.c5.48

¹ In the MBh. the man of the warrior nobility is always declaring that his kind does not ask and takes nothing; “grant me,” he utters of only one thing: of fighting. Only the Brahmans beg; begging is, indeed, their faithful mate; but the Kshattriya owns and enjoys that only which he has won with his own might. See, for instance, i, 92.13 ff.; iii, 154.10; v, 75.23; 120.19; xii, 199.42, 74, 82, 112. As here, so the warrior, times beyond telling, shows us in the MBh., how removed from the priestly class he feels himself, and how deeply his lordly pride scorns it. For this cp., too, the excellent account of Hopkins, JAOS, xiii, 151-62; Fick, *Die soziale Gliederung*, etc., 51 ff., 64. But the nobility is left far and away behind by the mad pretensions of the priestly caste, which has given the poem its present form, and fully indemnifies itself through its one and only weapon—the word, as the MBh. repeatedly points out. Indeed, it has, as is well known, preached the taking of gifts as actually one of its good works, and in xiii, 121.14, we read the pronouncement: “The taker wins the same merit as the giver; for nothing rolls on one wheel, as the holy seers know.” It is only the bestower then, that owes thankfulness; he is given the chance to win high religious blessing by deeds.