Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c16.14

v2.c16.14

Touching is the plaint of the pious dove that has lost her husband in the heart-snaring tale edited by M. Haberlandt in his *Indische Legenden* : “‘ I cannot remember thee ever doing me an unkindness, O beloved, and every widowed woman mourns, even though she have many sons. Pitiable to her kinsfolk is the poor woman that has lost her husband. And I was ever fondled by thee, and honoured because of thy esteem. Amid sweet, tender, fresh-gushing, heart-delighting words I have taken my delight together with thee in the caves of the mountains, and by the waterfalls of the rivers, and on the pleasant tree-tops, and flying through the air I have found sweet joy with thee. Once I had my delight, O beloved ; that is no more. For what the father gives has bounds, so what the brother gives, so what the son gives—what woman then should not worship the giver of what knows no bounds, the husband ? ² There is no stay like the husband ; there is no happiness like the husband. All money and goods the woman leaves behind her, and finds her refuge in her husband. Without thee, my treasure, there is nothing left for me in life. What good wife could live without her husband ?’ After this woman, weighed down by deep sorrow, had thus wailed piteously and long, faithful to her husband, she went into the flaming fire ” (xii, 148.2 ff.). Yudhishṭhira calls out at the side of Duryodhana, who is wounded to death : “ How can I again behold my brothers’ and my sons’ widowed wives, reeling in sorrow, with sorrow overwhelmed? For thee alone, O king, it is well; for thee stands open in heaven a sure abode. We shall come to dreadful sorrow, that is to be called a hell; and the sorely stricken wives of Dhṛtarāṣṭra’s sons, and his grandsons’ wives, those widowed, sorrow-harrowed women, will of a surety upbraid us” (ix, 59.29, 30). The dying Duryodhana himself first bewails his sister, that she has lost her husband and brothers (ix, 64.35, 36). Cp. xii, 1.16. The daughter of the Rākṣasa, Kumbhīnasī, has been carried off by the Daitya Madhu, and her kinsman Rāvaṇa sets out in anger to chastise the insolent one. At first he finds only the “sister”, who, however, weepingly beseeches him: “Slay not, I pray, my husband. For for women of good birth there is here on earth no horror like this. Among all horrors widowhood is the greatest stroke of evil” (Rām., vii, 25.42 ff.). Cp. ix, 42.15 f. Therefore, too, Mahābh., i, 158.22 declares: “The highest reward of women is to go, before the husband, to that most glorious abode in heaven for those gifted with sons; thus do they know it, those with the knowledge of the holy law.”