Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.78

v1.c8.78

and this according to xii, 34.26, is done by a fire-offering. Seed and the shedding of seed is, indeed, magically dangerous. It also belongs to full chastity, as already mentioned, that a man should not know a woman (prajānāti, i, 64.117) before she has reached puberty (aprāptayauvana). Perhaps the heights of considerate chastity are reached by Nakula, the hero beautiful, “most worthy of gaze in all the world,” who goes off into banishment plastered with dust all over his body, as he does not wish to turn the women’s heads on the way (ii, 80.6.18).