Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c7.42.3

v1.c7.42.3

Swooning, the mother of them both sank to the ground (i, 136.27 ff.). Together with her sons she was to be burned in the house of resin but escaped with them, and now shared their wanderings filled with danger and hardship 1; her splendid children, from whom she had hoped so much, were fugitives and beggars, and with them she lived on alms. Arjuna’s skill with the bow now won the princess Draupadī, and in spite of the strong opposition of the disillusioned rivals they brought home this fair prize of victory. The mother knew nothing of all this, and hovered in the darkness of anguish lest the hostile men or evil spirits had slain the sons who did not come back in the evening at the proper time (i, 190.43 ff.). The evil game of dice followed, and the thirteen years’ banishment of her children. Filled with the sorrow of despair, she bade them farewell, and showed herself especially anxious on behalf of Sahadeva, the son of her fellow-wife Mādrī—a complement to the love which the sons in the Epic are wont to give the fellow-wives of their mother.² But not one word of reproach against Yudh., who has brought about all the wretchedness, escapes from her lips here ; it is only her own, her deserved fate that she makes responsible — a true Indian mother (ii, 79.10 ff.).