Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.121

v2.c11.121

But a regular Don Juan from heaven is Indra, like the Greek king of the gods, his colleague.³ In days of old he started to win laurels in this field, and the later literature often tells of his love affairs (cp. Wilson, *Selected Works*, iii, 35 ; Weber’s *Indische Studien*, v, pp. 249-50). In spite of his faithful wife Çacī, who, however, was kept very wan and haggard, and in spite of his host of heavenly hetæræ, the Apsarases, he is drawn to the women of the earth. Everywhere he lies in wait for beautiful women, and changes himself into every kind of shape so as to enjoy them, just like his more majestic but correspondingly craftier brother of Olympus, or like Odin in Germanic mythology. Just as Zeus once came to Amphitryon’s wife in the shape of her husband, so did Indra come to Ahalyā, as we have already touched upon (xii, 266 ; Rām., i, 48 ; vii, 30.20 ff.).¹ After he had given the bad example, had brought love-making with other men’s wives into the world, this also spread among mankind (Rām., vii, 30.33). To what a pitch of cunning invention he had reached in the seduction of women will be shown shortly in another connection. And in other ways, too, this heavenly libertine is fond of playing all kinds of tricks on women, as is to be seen from the tale of Devayānī and Çarmishṭhā.