Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.18

v1.c8.18

³ Not only are all Kṣattriyas in the Epic, and the holy kings of earliest times mighty hunters before the Lord, but even in the midst of a rhapsody on the ahiṃsā and the awfulness of killing living beings and of eating flesh hunting is held up to praise and declared to be wholly sinless; for the Kṣattriya while so engaged sets his own life at stake, it is slaying foes. And moreover Agastya, the great saint, and in our days the hero above all others, of the Tamil people, not only did hunt himself, but also besprinkled (that is, consecrated) the beasts of the forest as sacrifices for all the gods, and thereby made them outlaws (i, 118.12 ff.; xiii, 115.56 ff.; 116.15 ff.; Vasiṣṭha, xiv, 15; Manu, v, 22). The hunt is looked on as a right and virtue of the nobles (Mahāvīracaritam ed. T. R. Ratnam Ayar, S. Ranga-chariar, and K. P. Parab, Bombay, 1892, p. 220: mṛgayā ca rājñāṃ dharma eva); indeed it is called their eternal law (sanātana dharma, Mahānirvāṇat., xi, 142). Cp. my Daçakumāracar., p. 340 f., and Rām., iv, 18.36 ff.