Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c19.56

v2.c19.56

within her body, like the reflection in the looking-glass, having gone into the body of his teacher's wife. When the breaker of strongholds saw this man, endowed with terrible asceticism, he trembled in deep fear, filled with dread of his curse. But the great penitent Vipula left the body of his teacher's wife, went into his own body, and spoke unto the quaking Çakra : ‘ Thou fool with unquelled senses, evil-natured Indra, not for long will gods and men hold thee in honour. Hast thou, then, forgotten, Çakra, is it not in thy memory, that Gautama made thee to run, with women's parts drawn all about thee as tokens ?¹ I know what a childishly stupid mind thou hast, what an ignoble soul, what a shifting nature. This woman here is being watched over by me, O blind one ; go thy way, thou evil one. For to-day I will not burn thee with my fiery strength, thou with the unseeing soul ; but it is out of pity for thee, O Vāsava, that I wish not to burn thee. And if my most terrible, wise teacher were to see thee, thou evil-minded one, he would burn thee now with an eye blazing with wrath.² But do not do thus again, Çakra ; thou must reverence the Brahmans, else comest thou together with thy sons and ministers to destruction, annihilated by the might of the Brahmans.’ ”—The shame-stricken Indra vanished without saying a word ; and when the teacher came back, Vipula told him of what the king of the gods had done. Devaçarman praised and rewarded the faithful man, and “ together with his wife, he lived without fear of Indra in the unpeopled forest ” (xiii, 40, 41). It is true Vipula had kept silence about a part of the matter, which was afterwards brought to his consciousness as a blameworthy thing ; he then avowed all the details to his teacher, and all was well. The account ends thus : “ But Vipula alone was successful in ever preserving a woman ; no other in the three worlds has it in his power to safeguard a woman ” (43.27).³