Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c21.9

v2.c21.9

P. 34, n. 2. P. 33, l. 9 must be: "be a maid again (wieder)." "Still (noch)" is what I put in when reading the proofs (when the primary text was not by me) for an original "again" (punar), since I thought the reading was kanyaiva tvam bhaviṣyasi, as immediately follows ("thou wilt be a maid"). For this expression is the usual one, and it is often hard to decide whether it means "to be still a maid unharmed" or "to become a maid again". That these two conceptions were not distinguished is shown e.g. by the following passages: Satyavatī bore Vyāsa as a virgin (kanyaiva, i, 60.2). So, too, K., i, 114.32 makes Parāçara say to her: Garbham utsṛjya māmakam . . . kanyaiva tvam bhaviṣyasi (cp. B., i, 105.13). But in the next çloka we find: Kanyātvam ca dadau prītaḥ punar, etc. And to Mādhavī the Brahman says: Kanyaiva tvam bhaviṣyasi (v, 116.11), and then we are told of her kumārī kāmato bhūtvā (116.21), and kanyā bhūtvā (118.1), which can hardly mean anything but: "having become a maid again." Kuntī herself says: punar eva tu kanyābhavam (xv, 30.16).