Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.41

v1.c7.41

¹ Yudhishṭhira, indeed, once also speaks harshly to his mother. But one must say she had really acted then to all appearance with unwarrantable thoughtlessness (i, 162.5-11). Then we hear from Vidura’s wise lips: “ These six always despise him who earlier has done good by them: disciples despise the teacher, when their instruction is ended; the sons the mother, when they have married; the lover the woman, when his love is dead; they whose business has been carried through, him that does it; he that has crossed the waste of the sea (nistīrṇakāntāra, cp. e.g. ‘pilot of the waste’ in the 2nd Jātaka), the ship; and the healed sick, the leech” (v, 33.87 f.). Of the lover the rule holds all over the world; Ward especially in his View of the Hindus has tried to show how thankless in general the Hindus are, but partly without sufficient warrant; and Bose, The Hindoos as They Are, p. 223 note, has something to say of the married son’s contempt towards his mother. But it is certain that the son’s love for the mother cannot be denied of the Indian, and really unique evidence of it is given in Samayamātṛkā, iv, 44-65 (pp. 44-46 in my translation).