Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.33

v2.c11.33

While those lofty-minded Brahmans were sitting there, Ruru went into the depths of the forest, and wailed aloud, filled with the greatest sorrow. Sore wounded, he poured out his woe in manifold heart-moving ways, and in his pain and in his memory of the beloved Pramadvarā he spoke the words : ‘ She is lying on the ground, the slender one, that makes my cares to grow, and those of all her kindred. What unhappiness could be greater ! If I have given charitable gifts, if I have practised asceticism, if I have won the goodwill of worshipful men, then my beloved one shall thereby come to life again. And as surely as from my birth I have held myself in check, and kept a pious troth towards the law, so surely shall Pramadvarā here, the shining one, arise again.’ While the sorrowing one in this wise was bitterly bewailing his wife, there came a messenger of the gods and spoke to Ruru in the forest : ‘ It is useless for thee, O Ruru, to be speaking words in thy sorrow; for for the mortal whose life is run there is no life left, O thou with virtuous soul. The life of this poor daughter of the Gandharva and the Apsaras has run out;