Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.86

v2.c20.86

Lomapāda, the king of the Aṅgas, and Daçaratha’s friend, had offended against a Brahman by promising him something and then not giving it.¹ Then the Brahmans turned away from him, and because of this offence against his house-priest it stopped raining in his land, and great want prevailed in it. He called on the Brahmans, “who had the power of making rain,” and asked how the rain god could be brought to bestow his gift. An old Muni said that the king must first atone for his offence against the wrathful Brahmans, and then have the forest man Ṛiṣyaçṛiṅga sent for, who was upright, and wholly without knowledge of women; so soon as he came into his kingdom,² it would rain. After consulting with his ministers the ruler bade hetæræ, washed with every kind of water, to come before him, and charged them to seduce the pious youth. They grew pale, and said the undertaking was an impossible one; for they feared the holy man’s curse. An old woman, however, promised to carry everything out, had a mighty, most splendid raft built, had it planted with trees covered with flowers and fruits, with bushes and creepers, and on this raft and penitential grove, together with a small following of lovely priestesses of love,¹ made her way to the neighbourhood of Vibhāṇḍaka’s hermitage. When she had learned from her spies that the father was away, she sent her clever and moreover well-tutored daughter to the young man of holiness. The daughter asked him in the most penitent-like terms, whether the pious life in the hermitage was taking a prosperous course. He welcomed the “ tall lord, shining like a light ” most respectfully, begged him to be seated on the kuça-grass cushion spread with black antelope skin, and to accept water for the feet, fruit, and roots. Then he asked where was the stranger’s hermitage-forest, and what was his penitential vow. The hetæra spoke : “ My hermitage lies three yojanas beyond this mountain. There is the pious law of my life ; respectful greeting is nothing to me, and water for the feet I do not touch.” His fruits she refused, but gave him delicious baked wares that he found surpassing good, sweet-smelling wreaths, and bright coloured garments, as, too, the most excellent drinks. She played before him with her ball, bent coquettishly this way and that like a fruit-covered tendril, and kept on putting her arms around him, setting limb fast against limb. She pulled down the flower-laden boughs of the trees, and broke them off ; she feigned bashfulness, and lured and led on, intoxicated, the youthful penitent. When she saw how Ṛiṣyaçṛiṅga had become deeply roused, she kept on pressing his body to hers, and then she went away, looking back again and again, pretending she must now make the sacrifice by fire. “ When she had gone, Ṛiṣyaçṛiṅga was drunk with love, his thoughts far away ; his heart winged its way to her only, and in his loneliness he sighed deep out of his tortured soul. Soon after his father appeared, with his yellow-brown eyes, wrapped in hair down to the tips of his nails, rich in holy learning, equipped with pious ways and mystic depths. He saw his son sitting there alone in deep thought, with his senses in a whirl, sighing mournfully, and ever and anon lifting up