Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.29

v1.c7.29

the woman that has done wrong. So neither the woman, nor myself, nor the wanderer (the guest) Indra can be accused of sinning against the law.¹ But it is my want of thought that sinned. Therefore do the holy men that are wholly chaste say that from jealousy comes woe. Carried away now by jealousy, I have sunk into the sea of evil-doing. Who will bring me safely to the shore, who have slain a good woman and a wife, and one brought to lechery through evil fate,² and, as I should have cherished and cared for her, my ‘foster-ward’ (my wife, bhāryā)? If Slow Doer, he with the noble soul, to whom in a weak moment I gave the order, were to-day indeed a slow doer, then he would keep me from a mortal sin (pātaka). Slow Doer, hail to thee! Hail to thee, Slow Doer! If thou to-day art a slow doer, then thou art indeed a slow doer. Save me and thy mother and the penitential merit I have acquired, and thyself from mortal sin; to-day be a slow doer. Long wast thou yearned for by thy mother, long borne in the womb; to-day let thy slow doing yield fruit, thou Slow Doer.”³ As Gautama, the great Ṛishi, thus was grieving himself, he saw his son Cirakāri standing near. But so soon as Cirakāri had seen his father, he threw the knife away, filled with deepest sorrow, and set about winning his