Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c13.58

v2.c13.58

parched within by thirst, came into the hermitage of Bhr̥igu. On this very night the high-souled, great Rishi was carrying out a sacrifice for Yuvanāçva, that he might get a son. A great jar, filled with water purified with holy words, stood there; it had been made ready before, that the wife of Yuvanāçva might drink it, and bear an Indra-like son. The jar had been set down on the sacrificial altar by the great Rishis, and now they were sleeping. Yuvanāçva went by these men wearied by the night watch; with dry throat, tortured by thirst, filled with a great yearning for water, he that was filled with peace of soul made his way into the hermitage, and asked for water. As the wearied one with parched throat now moaned tearfully, no one heard him, just as though it were the cry of a bird. So soon as the prince saw the jar filled with water, he ran impetuously up to it, drank it dry, and set it down again. When the thirst-tormented ruler of the earth had drunk the cold water, the wise one felt the bliss of the quenched glow (nirvāṇam agamat), and was very happy. Then those Munis and the penitents awoke, and they all saw that the jar of water was emptied. ‘Whose deed is that?’ those asked who came up. Yuvanāçva acknowledged the truth, and said: ‘Mine.’ ‘That is not well,’ then said the holy son of Bhr̥igu to him; ‘that thou mayest get a son, I have set the water there, and made it fitting through my asceticism. I have put into it the holy power,¹ having given myself up to dreadful penance, that thou mayest obtain a son, O kingly Rishi of great might and bravery. (It was to be) a son of great strength, of great heroic valour, and ascetic power, who with his heroic courage would bring even Indra into Yama’s abode. Through this holy action I have brought this about. In that thou hast now drunk the water thou hast not done well, O king. But now we cannot make this otherwise than it is. It is undoubtedly a disposition of Providence that thou hast thus acted. Through this water that thou didst drink in thy thirst, which I had marked off by ceremony and prayer, and made ready through the power of my penance, thou thyself wilt bear such a son. I will then carry out for thee a most wonderful sacrifice, that thou with hero’s strength, thou mayest bring forth an Indra-like son, and also need suffer none of the ills arising from the carrying of the womb’s fruit.’ Then at the end of a hundred years the son there, who was like a sun, split the left thigh of the high-souled king, and came forth, he the most powerful; and King Yuvanāçva was not taken by death; that was very wonderful.”—Wonderful, too, was the child, Māndhātar, of whom not only the Brahmans but the Buddhists also have told many tales (iii, 126).¹ According to vii, 62, indeed, the two Açvins have to do service here as midwives; they pull Māndhātar out of his father’s womb (garbha). Here the king while hunting came thirsty to a sacrificial offering, and drank the sacrificial butter. In xii, 29.81 ff., too, Māndhātar comes into being in his father’s belly, and in this passage, indeed, also through sacrificial butter being consumed. Here the wind gods took the child from his father’s side.² Also the pious king Cibi Auçīnara bears a son from out of his side (iii, 197.26 ff.).