Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.61

v2.c11.61

longing to see Arjuna again. Then the wind wafted out of the north-east happened to bring there a divine lotus-flower, like unto the sun. This wind-wafted, pure, water-borne thing, heavenly-scented, gladdening the heart, was seen lying on the ground by the princess of Pañcāla (Draupadī). When the shining one had found this shining thing, the surpassing lotus-flower,¹ she was right glad, and spoke to Bhīmasena : ‘Look, Bhīma, at the heavenly, brightly shining flower without compare, perfect in scent and shape, a delight for my heart! . . . If I am dear to thee, O son of Pṛithā, then get me many like it; I will take them with me back again into the hermitary Kāmyaka.’ When she with the lovely eyes, she free from any fault, had thus spoken to Bhīmasena, she went and took away the flower for Yudhishṭhira.² At once when the bull among men, Bhīma, the powerful strong one, had learned the wishes of his beloved wife, he went off filled with the yearning to do something after her heart. Facing the wind, he strode swiftly along towards whence this flower had come, wishing to bring more flowers, and grasping his gold-backed bow and the snake-like arrows, like the angry king of beasts, like a rutting elephant. All beings saw the bearer of the arrows and the mighty bow. Neither weariness nor weakness, neither fear nor bewilderment ever befell the child of Pṛithā, the son of the wind. Striving after that which was dear to Draupadī, trusting in the strength of his arms, shunned by anxiety or numbness of senses, the strong one flew along on the mountain. The destroyer of foes ranged the glorious mountain-top, clothed in trees, creepers, and bushes, paved with dark stones, the wandering-ground of Kinnaras; it showed bright, with many-coloured minerals, trees, beasts, and birds, and was filled with every beauty, and raised up like an arm of the earth. While his eye clung always to the ravishing ridges of the Gandhamādana, and he was pondering his purpose in his heart, and his ear, heart, and eye were held captive by the notes of the male kokila-bird, and the working of the bees,¹ he went striding along in his unbounded heroic strength. Scenting the perfume wafted up from the flowers that bloom at all seasons of the year, unfettered in the forest as a rutting elephant, fanned by the wind from Gandhamādana,² very pure, filled with sweet scent from various flowers, cooled through having touched its father, he freed from weariness by his father,³ his body clothed with fine hair ruffled with joy—thus did the so mighty queller of foes search the mountain, haunt of Yakshas, Gandharvas, gods, and Brahmarshi-bands, to find the flower. This mountain was wrapped in the headlong waters of the waterfalls as in threaded pearls, filled with the splendid peacocks brought to dance by the sounds of the anklets of the Apsarases, and the robe seemed to be gliding down from it in the form of the hurrying⁴ waters streaming from the rivers. With young torn-up grass in their mouths, calm, keeping near him, unknown to fear, the gazelles gazed at him; in his headlong career he set the tangle of creepers quivering in great clumps, he sported with merry heart, and so the son of the wind went along, he of the beautiful eyes, eagerly bent on fulfilling his loved one's wish, tall, in golden splendour, the youth with the stout limbs of the lion, with a hero's might like a rutting elephant, headlong as a rutting elephant. Representing,⁵ as it were, a new Avatāra of beauty, thinking of the various miseries caused by Duryodhana, full of eagerness to do something pleasing for Draupadī living in the forest wilds, filled with the thought : ‘ How can I very speedily get the flowers ? ’—so did he range along the glorious ridge of Gandhamādana.