Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.30

v2.c19.30

But even without such injustice from the husband enmity between his various wives appears in the Epic as normal and quite a matter of course.² Needless was the ethical teacher’s sermon there: “For wives, besides intrigues with other men there is nothing to do them hurt in the world beyond, and besides hatred against the fellow-wife nothing to do them hurt in this world” (i, 233.26). Already the two daughters of Prajāpati, the maker of the world—Kadrū and Vinatā—wives of one man, quarrelled with one another, and the one as the result of a wager became the slave of the other (i, 20 ff.). The holy man Mandapāla in the form of a bird weds a hen-bird Jaritā. When she has laid four eggs, he leaves her, and goes off with another hen-bird, Lapitā. In the Khāṇḍava forest, where they dwell, the great fire now breaks out; he then wants to go off and see after his offspring. But Lapitā is very angry, and sulks : “Thou only wantest to go to my foe, and dost not love me any more as thou didst once.” And when he then comes to the fledglings and their mother, they do not deign to give him one friendly look or word; only Jaritā throws at him : “Go away, do, to thy Lapitā!” (i, 229 ff., especially 233.7 ff., 24 ff.).—When Kuntī has got three sons, her fellow-wife Mādrī says to Pāṇḍu that she would also like to have children, but cannot in her jealous anger against her rival (samrambha) ask her herself; so he must be the one to make of her the request to help her fellow to have offspring. This, she says, will be well for him also. Kuntī teaches Mādrī how to go about it, and this obliging act is called a very hard thing (sudushkara). But she that is thus favoured gets at one swoop two sons from the Açvins, and then Kuntī is filled with moral indignation at the bad woman who has deceived her, she says, and filled with the fear that the hated one will become too powerful by having more children, and do her harm; therefore she refuses to get her any more sons (i, 124). That the fiery Draupadī does not look on with particularly kindly eyes, when her darling Arjuna brings home a new wife, Subhadrā, may at once guessed. She flings the words at him : “Go, then, I pray, to where the daughter of Sātvata dwells. However tightly bound a bundle is, if it is tied up once more, then the first fastening becomes loose.” Arjuna tries over and over again to reconcile and console her, and then sends his wondrous lovely new wife, clad in red silk and as a shepherdess, thus to show her lowly standing, into his women’s apartment. Kuntī kisses the new-comer. The latter bows respectfully before her rival, and says : “I am thy servant.” Then the deeply hurt lady makes the best of a bad thing, and clasps Subhadrā to her. “Now were the hearts of the Pāṇḍavas, the great chariot-fighters, joyfully stirred, and Kuntī filled with the utmost joy ” (i, 221.15 ff.). Cp. also xiv, 88.