Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.52

v2.c13.52

(hell's pit). In the Epic, too, it lasts generally ten months (iii, 134.17 ; 205.10, etc.). But we repeatedly meet with far longer pregnancies in the Mahābhārata.¹ It is for three years that Çakuntalā bears Bharata in the womb, and that which took a long time, even here turns out well (i, 74.1-2). Gāndhārī has been now with child for two years, her womb is hard, and she learns with sorrow that Kuntī has given birth ; then with great torment she sets to thumping (ghātayāmāsa) her belly, and brings forth a lump of flesh as hard as a ball of iron. At Vyāsa's order she pours cold water over it, whereupon it falls into one hundred and one pieces, which she puts in a vessel with melted butter ; a hundred sons and one daughter thus come into being (i, 115.1 ff.). The same thing happens, too, to the wife of King Kalmāshapāda : she frees herself after twelve years from the fruit of her womb, which the Brahman Vasisṭha has begotten in her, by opening her own body with a stone ; hence her son is called Açmaka ("Stone-ling", i, 177.44 ff.). Vasisṭha's daughter-in-law Adṛiçyantī in the same way for twelve years shelters under her heart Parāçara, who was later to be the holy man. He spends his time, during this very thorough preparation for coming into life, in studying the Vedas aloud (i, 177.11 ff.; 43 ff.). Lopamudrā, Agastya's wife, carries for seven years, and then bears her son, but a wonder-child likewise (iii, 99.24 ff.). A hundred years even does a Bhṛigu woman carry Aurva, and that in her thigh. Then the child is to be slain by the hostile Kshattriyas, and comes out of the thigh with such sunlike brightness that the evil-doers all lose their sight (i, 178.11 ff.). This cunctator, too, knows the whole Veda before his birth. On the other hand, the Rākshasa women bring forth at once after conception, as Satyavatī does Vyāsa, and as, according to Jean Paul, the Talmud teaches as to Jewish women in heaven (i, 155.36). This is a special grace which Umā or Kālī has bestowed on the Rākshasī (Rām., vii, 4.30, 31).