Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c20.99

v2.c20.99

He now set out to hunt for these devils or Rākshasas, but sought in vain for three days long, and then came back. But when he had again gone forth to fetch fruit, the bestower of love came once more, and he called to her: “Let us go quickly to thy place before my father comes back.” She brought him onto the raft, and on this to the land of the Aṅgas. “So soon as the king had led the only son of Vibhāṇḍaka into his women’s apartments, he suddenly saw the rain god rain, and the world fill itself with water.” ¹ He gave him his daughter Çāntā; then on the road from his capital to the penitential grove of Vibhāṇḍaka, mighty in his wrath, everywhere he established tilled fields and herdsmen’s stations with much cattle, and gave orders to the men there that, if the holy man came to look for his son, they were to entertain him most handsomely, and tell him that all this cattle and the fields belonged to Ṛṣyaśṛṅga. When the penitent came back, and could not find his son, he hastened, “bursting with anger, and suspecting that it had been contrived by the king, to Campā to burn up the king together with his city and kingdom.” But as he was received everywhere with such kindness and humbleness, and was told that all the splendour had been given to his son, he blessed the union of Ṛṣyaśṛṅga with Śāntā, and only made the condition that his child should after the birth of a son come again to the forest. Thus, too, it was done, and Śāntā joyfully followed her husband.¹