[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Polity, law and society](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity) › [Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915) › v1.c8.94 # Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.94 Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v1.c8.94 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c8.94](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c8.94) king of the deathless ones must send with her the god of love and the wind to help. This is done; and when the enchanting one stands before the penitent, the wind is wafted thither laden with forest scents, and blows the wanton one’s garment away. She bends down hastily after it, smiling shamefacedly. But Viçvāmitra is so carried away by the charms of her bared body that he invites her to love, “and the faultless one wishes for it, too.” The two stay together a long age, but it goes by them like one day (i, 71.20 ff.). In the Rāmāyaṇa Menakā happens to bathe near Viçvāmitra, and overborne by love he asks her to lie with him. Ten years go by him, in pleasure and ecstasy with her, like one day and night. Then he comes to himself, and by fresh mortification sets the gods and Ṛishis in dread. Indra now bids the Apsaras Rambhā to undertake the saving work of seduction. As she is fearful of the adventure so fraught with disaster, he goes himself to stand by her, changed into a kokila-bird, and accompanied by the god of love. The staunchness of the holy man is indeed shaken by the bird’s sweet, heart-mazing notes, and the incomparable singing and semblance of the nymph, but he sees that it is a snare of Indra’s, and falls into such anger that he curses the temptress into stone, and so loses his penitential powers (Rām., i, 63, 64).¹ - [Previous: v1.c8.93](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c8.93) - [Next: v1.c8.95](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c8.95) - [Up: v1.c8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c8) ## Linked texts (2) - [Mahābhārata](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.mahabharata.vyasa.1.71.20) — Vyāsa, Sanskrit - [Vālmīkirāmāyaṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.lit.ramayana.valmiki.1.63) — Vālmīki, Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c8.94](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.polity.meyer-1915.v1.c8.94) · Pramāṇa