Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.15

v2.c13.15

he there goes in.¹ Into the trees, into the plants they (the souls) go, into the water, into the wind, into the earth, and into the air, into the four-footed and two-footed—into all things they go²; in such an existence (evambhūta) they become embryos.” Aṣṭaka spoke : “ Does it (the soul) make for itself here another body (vapus), or does it make its way in its own body (kāya) into the womb, when it comes into human existence ? Let me know of this; I ask in doubt. In what way does it come unto the various bodies, and all else that grows,³ the eyes and ears, the consciousness ? Make known, thou that art put to the question, this whole matter; we all hold thee for one that knows the field.” Yayāti spoke : “ The wind at the time of the ṛitu carries the seed up to the womb, mingled with the menstrual fluid; there it makes the embryo gradually to grow, wielding sway over the atoms. When the human being has now taken the material to himself, and is born, then he takes his place in his consciousness,⁴ and so hears sound with his ear, sees shapes with his eye, smells with his nose, and tastes with his tongue, feels touch with his skin, and perceives his condition with the manas ” (i, 90.10 ff.).⁵ “ Thirty parts⁶ there are according to the tradition. Where these all are found, there there is a body, so it has been handed down to us. The one takes for his own, as something that cannot be perceived, the (basic) matter (prakṛiti) of these parts, and in like wise, as something that can be perceived, the other, who has a coarse understanding. To be perceived or not to be perceived, twofold or fourfold—they that have pondered on the world-soul see matter in all beings. The matter which (in itself) cannot be perceived has through its (incarnated) parts taken on perceptibility : I and thou, O king, and all other corporeal beings there are. With the pouring in of the drop (of the male seed) those conditions begin that arise out of the male seed and out of the (woman’s) blood, and through their appearance the kalala¹ comes into being ; from the kalala develops the small bubble (budbuda) ; and from the small bubble the lump of flesh (peçī)—so tradition teaches us. But from the lump of flesh the limbs come forth, and nails and hair from the limbs. After the ninth month is fulfilled, O king of Mithilā, name and form (the individuality) comes into being of the child begotten, a little woman or man according to the marks of sex.² Although a man sees his (of one new-born) shape equipped with red nails and fingers directly after birth, yet he does not observe that in his own shape, when it has received the shape of childhood’s years. And from childhood’s years into the years of youth, and into advanced years from the years of youth—in these successive stages a man never perceives again what has gone before. A change in the constituents and the various things belonging to them³ is happening each instant in all beings; but because of their fineness it is not perceived. Nor is their passing away noticed, and their coming into being in one state after another, no more than in a light is noticed what happens with the flame.⁴ Since this whole world, which has this for its character, is ever hastening on like a good