Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c16.22

v2.c16.22

¹ It is instructive to find that it is only after Pāṇḍu’s death, when Vyāsa so orders her, and tells her what dreadful times are coming that Satyavatī with her widowed daughters-in-law, and therefore as one far stricken in years with these no longer young women, goes off into the penitential wilderness (i, 128, 1-13); and that Kuntī, too, only takes this step with Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Gāndhārī at an advanced age. Yudhishṭhira and Bhima try as best they can to persuade her not to go, all her sons follow her with tears in their eyes, and her daughters-in-law Draupadī and Subhadrā go a stretch of the way with her, weeping and in despair, but she will not let herself be held back, but means by humble service to her “ parents-in-law ” and asceticism to earn her entry into the world of her husband (xvi, 16, 17).