Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.48

v2.c19.48

For as the wanderer on the road goes into an empty rest-house, so will I make the body of my teacher’s wife my lodging (cp. xii, 320.172, 188). Thus shall I dwell in her body with collected mind.’ Learn now, O lord of the earth, how this child of Bhr̥gu practised the greatest care after he had thus looked from every side at what is right and at the Vedas of the Vedas, had looked on his teacher’s and his own bountiful asceticism, and had thus in his mind resolved on taking her into his care. As his teacher’s wife and he sat there, the great penitent Vipula enticed her of the faultless limbs into correspondence with his purpose.¹ With his eyes, with their bridles, Vipula linked the bridle of her eyes, with her organ his organ, and with her mouth his mouth, and so penetrated into her body as wind into space.² Without stirring, the Muni abode there, hidden, like a shadow. Then Vipula dwelt in the body of his teacher’s wife, strengthening and wholly filling it, and heedfully thinking always of the care of her ; and she noticed him not at all.³ All the time, so long as the teacher of this high-minded one had not completed the sacrifice and came not home, he watched over her.⁴ Then came one day the ruler of the gods, thinking: ‘This is a good opportunity’; he came in celestial embodiment and shape to this hermitage. When the king¹ had taken on an incomparable, enticing beauty, and become a most glorious sight to see, he came into the penitential grove. He saw Vipula’s body sitting there without stirring, with staring eyes, as though he were only in a picture, and saw Ruci with the splendid corners of the eyes, the swelling hips and breasts, the great eyes like a lotus leaf, and the face that was as the full moon. When she saw him she was minded to rise up quickly and greet him, amazed at his beauty, and wished apparently to say: ‘Who art thou?’ But as she would have risen, she was hindered by Vipula; held back, O ruler of men, she could not move. To her spoke the ruler of the gods with very fair and soft words: ‘Know, O brightly smiling one, that I am the king of the gods, that I am come hither for thy sake, tortured by the love that has sprung from my longing for thee. Therefore, do thou receive me,² O thou with the lovely brows, before the favourable time goes by.’ The Muni Vipula heard Çakra, the head herdsman of the gods, thus speaking, saw him, as he abode in the body of his teacher’s wife. And the faultless one could not rise to meet him, and could not speak, being withheld by Vipula. But the child of Bhr̥gu understood the mien of his teacher’s wife, and the most mighty one held her back by force through his yoga. And he bound all her senses with yoga bonds. But when Çaci’s husband still saw no change in her, he spoke shamefacedly to her that was bewildered through the power of yoga: ‘Come! come!’ Then she would have answered him. But Vipula twisted the words of his teacher’s wife—‘Ho! what is thy purpose in coming hither?’ sped the words, adorned with rightful speech,³ from her moonlike face. But she stood shamefaced there, when she had spoken these words under the stress of another. And Indra stood there, and was filled with confusion; and when he saw her unnatural condition, the thousand-eyed king of the gods gazed at it with his divinely searching look. Then he saw that the Muni was