Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c12.22

v2.c12.22

² Note that the whole extract deals with the māhātmya, the glory of woman, and that the text speaks much of all the cruelty (or baseness, nṛiçamsa) that works against women on earth. My rendering, therefore, fits in excellently with the context and with the truth and reality. The child-bearing woman and the warrior are especially linked together in the popular mind in other parts of the world also. Here samācāra can be taken either as sam or as sama + ācāra; the genit. mahātmanām probably refers back to the first half of the çloka. From the point of view of the language the most obvious, indeed, would be: “ Show unto me the true essence of the way of duty of the Kshattriyas; the virtue of the high-souled is for the lowly man hard to win.” But then we should here have to reject the whole çloka. Kshettra could also be read instead of kshattra, and “ fruitful field ” be put = wife. But for all that this idea is very usual, yet there are some difficulties here about the matter (xii, 205.14).