Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.14

v2.c13.14

¹ Prāṇa, Apāna, etc., are the five “breaths of life”, in medicine forms of the wind, which is one of the three basic substances of the body, physiologically active life-forces. The last sentence is Deussen’s translation (*Vier philosophische Texte des Mahābhārata*, p. 918). After wrestling long with the here very illogical text I have resolved simply to give this again instead of bringing up other possibilities. The Sanskrit text of the preceding sentence is: kāmāt samjāyate çukram, çukrāt samjāyate rajaḥ. I have taken rajas = rāga, as it is used, for instance, in xii, 213.9-10; 214.11-14. Materially the rendering is quite the right one. But here it does not fit properly. According to the context rajas should mean menstrual blood. But çukrāt stands in the way of this. Deussen changes to kāmāt; this is too violent in the face of all three texts. Seed is also indeed ascribed to the woman just as among the old Greeks and Romans; therefore: “out of the (female seed) arises the menstrual blood?” Or: “as a consequence of the male seed (that is, because it exists, and the woman yearns for it) the menstrual blood arises?” This in meaning would = kāmāt.