Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.149.3

v1.c6.149.3

But his mothers tore him away² by force, filled with pity, wailing in their burning sorrow: 'Woe, we are death's,' weeping bitterly and seizing him by the right hand. But the sacrificial priest seized him by the left hand, and so dragged and tore the child away from them, who wailed like she-eagles of the sea. And having cut him up according to the precept, he offered up the retina of his eye in the fire. When the retina was offered up in the fire, and the mothers smelt the smoke, they fell in tortures suddenly onto the ground, and all these exquisite women there received a fruit of the body. Ten months afterwards the gift of a full hundred sons was made by these wives together to Somaka. Jantu was born first, and from his own mother¹; he was the much beloved for them all, not so their own children; and that golden birthmark was on his right side, and among these hundred sons he was the first too in qualities. Then that Guru (teacher, high priest) of Somaka went into the other world. And in the course of time Somaka, too, went into the other world. There he saw him scorching in the dreadful hell. He asked him: ‘Wherefore dost thou scorch in hell, O Brahman?’ Then his Guru, who was being sore tortured by the fire, spoke unto him: ‘I have made sacrifice for thee, O king, this is the fruit of that work.’ When the royal Rishi had heard this, he spoke to the king of justice (to Yama, the lord of the dead and of hell): ‘I will go in there. Set thou my sacrificial priest free!