Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c5.87

v1.c5.87

Now when this best of the twice-born had for some reason or other gone away, this maiden pondered on the power or otherwise of the magic spell: “What kind of spell has been given me then by the high-minded one? I will learn about its strength in a short while. As she was thus thinking, she happened to notice her monthly flow, and filled with shame was the child, who was having the menses in her girlhood (for the first time).¹ Then she saw, who was used to a splendid couch, the sun’s disk rise, resting in the east on the palace roof. The mind and eyes of the slender one clung to it, and as the sun god was only just rising she was not annoyed by the heat of his body. She was granted the divine sight: she saw the god in his divine manifestation, wearing his armour, adorned with two ear-rings. But she was curious as to her magic spell, and so the fair one called on this god. As she then moistened her senses’ tools with water, she called on the maker of day; he came swiftly, honey-yellow, long-armed, muscular-necked, lightly laughing, with rings on his arms, a crown on his head, making the lands of the world, as it were, to blaze up. Splitting his own self by magic into two parts, he came and brightly glowed. Then he spoke to Kuntī, with exceeding kind and friendly words: “I have become of service to thee, bound by thy magic spell, my dear one. What am I to do, as thy vassal, O queen? Speak! I will do it.” Kuntī spoke: “Go thither, O sublime one, whence thou camest. It was out of curiosity that I called thee. Be merciful to me, O lord.” The sun god spoke: “I will go, even as thou hast bidden me, O slender one. But it is not right to call on a god and send him away for a worthless