Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c6.94

v1.c6.94

women wishful to be made fruitful.¹ Then the begetting by proxy with the husband's authorization is to be found for Old India in general in the other narrative literature also,² it has always been in existence in various lands, and, be it noted, in princely families, and even to-day it has not yet died out.¹ But the Mahābh. in its present shape is so deeply concerned with the craziest glorification of the Brahman, that we shall hardly go wrong, if in the legends in the Epic of this priestly activity as proxies we see little else but partisan suggestion.² Furthermore, by the Brahmanic mind, as it is reflected in Smṛiti and other later literature, begetting by proxy, whether in the life-time or after the death of the husband, was looked on generally as wrongful. The teaching there is ever: Quod licet jovi non licet bovi; what the gods and the holy men of the pure early times have done is right for them, but for us ordinary mortals of another age, namely, the evil age of Kali, it is forbidden; indeed, as has been already mentioned, neither in the Mahābh. nor elsewhere is blame wanting for those only so-called models of virtue.