Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.85

v2.c20.85

Even one that has grown up in the forest, and has no knowledge what kind of being a woman is, falls helplessly before the charms of the fair, as the old tale of Ṛiśyaçṛiṅga tells us. His father’s name was Vibhāṇḍaka, the Kāçyapa ; his (V.’s) staring eyes were yellowish brown ; he was thickly covered with hair down to the tips of his nails ; he dwelt in the forest as a Veda-learned ascetic of pious life, and mystic powers of sinking deep in thought. Ṛiśyaçṛiṅga’s mother was an antelope, that had drunk the seed of his father which had escaped at the sight of the fascinating fay Urvaçī, and thus had conceived in her womb. He himself is said to have had a horn on his forehead. He had grown up ² in the lonely forest, and had never seen any man but his father, to say nothing of a woman. But mighty was the magic strength of his chaste youth, and through it, when there was a dreadful drought in the land of Aṅga under King Lomapāda, he forced the rain god Indra to send down the heavenly moisture. The king’s own daughter, the lovely and youthful Śāntā, came out to him in the penitential grove to fire him with love, and entice him into her father’s kingdom, that through his presence the rain so long in vain yearned for might fall; and she was given to wife to the wonderful, wonder-working youth from the forest and served him with the truest love. The later story-telling art made a harlot instead of the princess carry out the conquest of this seemingly invulnerable youth, and so it reads in the Mahābh. also (iii, 110.22 to 113), although even only a few verses before this tale, the Mahābh. itself gives Śāntā as his seducer.