Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c12.50

v2.c12.50

Many, it is true, find it too much. A great number of the men of whom the Epic, too, tells us are mighty in asceticism; the conquest of the senses then appears as the highest end. Woman wants love; and she wants to see the man using his strength, even if it be savagely or even brutally, not in the pure ether where passion is not. “This old legend, too, is told, the discourse which was held between husband and wife. A Brahman woman spoke to a Brahman man who had reached the further shore of holy and worldly knowledge, and whom she saw sitting there alone, the wife spoke to the husband: ‘Into which world (of heaven) shall I now come, who am allotted to thee as wife, to one that has cast aside all active work, and squats there, a stupid, miserable wretch (kīnāça)? Wives come into the worlds made ready by their husbands, so we have been told. To what place shall I now go, who have fallen to thee as my husband?’ (xiv, 20.1 ff.). See, too, how King Janaka of Videha who has become a monk is upbraided by his wife as one that has forgotten his duty (xii, 18). The wife of Dīrghatama has to support him, but rids herself, as we saw, of a master who is in many respects unpleasant (i, 104.30 ff.). From the holy Atri his wife runs away and cries out: “I will no longer be subject in any way to this Muni!” (xiii, 14.95). How others, while keeping faithfully by the husband, yet give utterance to their discontent with him, of this we have already found an example in Draupadī. More will be said later. So also in the chapter on the ideal woman something more will be found on the relation of the wife to the husband. Here we give only three further examples of wedded faithfulness. Çacī is proverbial for her chastity, the wife of the woman-loving king of the gods. How she was put to a hard test is told in v, 10 ff. Indra had slain Vṛitra, and thereby burdened himself with the guilt of Brahman-murder. He therefore crept away into the water at the edge of the world. The whole world suffered most dreadfully, since now there was no Indra. The gods then appointed Nahusha, the pious guest of heaven, as his successor. But he now became an insolent ruffian, giving free rein to his lusts. All the hosts of Apsarases and houris of the gods were not enough for him: as soon as he had seen Çacī he wanted her. The gods represented to him the shamefulness of touching another man’s wife, but he made them remember that they had held their tongues quiet enough when Indra was raping Ahalyā, and doing his other foul deeds. The poor harassed queen of heaven had at last to submit, and take herself in fear and trembling to the tyrant, and ask a respite of him.