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Essay name: Purana Bulletin

Author:
Affiliation: University of Kerala / Faculty of Oriental Studies

The "Purana Bulletin" is an academic journal published in India. The journal focuses on the study of Puranas, which are a genre of ancient Indian literature encompassing mythological stories, traditions, and philosophical teachings. They represent Hindu scriptures in Sanskrit and cover a wide range of subjects.

Purana, Volume 4, Part 1 (1962)

Page:

213 (of 236)


External source: Shodhganga (Repository of Indian theses)


Download the PDF file of the original publication


Warning! Page nr. 213 has not been proofread.

Jan. 1962] THE LEGEND OF CIRAKARIN 209 the nature and magnitude of the mother's guilt. We have
seen above in the SK. version that the mother's guilt lay in her
lapse of merely having gazed at King Bali. There Indra merely
played the part of an adviser who advised Gautama to take
a lenient view of the affair. In the Mbh. version, however,
in a passage which is found dropped in the SK., Indra plays
the active and principal part in seducing and ravishing the
wife of Gautama (the mother of Cirkarin). Both Gautama and
Cirakärin know it and still hold the wife and the mother
respectively as guiltless in the exigency of that particular
situation, of course, on different grounds. C. argues that Indra
approached his mother in the guise of Gautama, his father, and
that, therefore, it was no fault of his mother, if she answered
the overtures of Indra, in her husband's guise. Further he
says that if it was anybody's fault or sin, it was Indra's; for
it was Indra who had put sexual passion in women's nature
and who now took advantage of that trait in the particular
case. C.'s words in the Mbh. passage are as follows: "A
husband is the highest object with the wife and the highest
deity to her. My mother gave up her sacred person to one
that came to her in the form and guise of her own husband.
Then again the sinfulness (in this case) is evident of Indra
himself who (by acting in the way he did) caused the re-
collection of the request that had been made to him in days
of yore by women (when a third part of the sin of Brahmanicide
of which Indra himself was guilty, was cast upon her sex)."
1 स्त्रिया हि परमो भर्त� दैवत� परमं स्मृतम� �
तस्यात्मना तु सदृशमात्मानं परमं दद� �
यश्वनोक्तो हि निर्देशः स्त्रिया
मैथुनतृप्तये �
तस्य स्मारयतो व्यक्तमधर्मो नात्� संशय � [striyā hi paramo bhartā daivata� parama� smṛtam |
tasyātmanā tu sadṛśamātmāna� parama� dadau ||
yaśvanokto hi nirdeśa� striyā
maithunatṛptaye |
tasya smārayato vyaktamadharmo nātra saṃśaya ||
]
37-38
Mbb. ib.
1 The translation given above of these two verses is that of Pratap
Chandra Ray who has followed Nilakantha's interpretation of the verses. In
view of the importance of these obscure verses, we give below Nilakantha's
relevant commentary (on these verses) which forms the basis of the trans-
lation above:
"स्त्रिया हि इत� � तस्य आत्मना शरीरे� सदृश� इन्द्रम् आलक्ष्येति शेषः �
श्रात्मानं शरीरं परमं श्रेष्ठं दद� � स्वपतिवेषेणागताय परस्मै पतिबुद्ध्य� शरीरं प्रयच्छन्त्य�
[striyā hi iti | tasya ātmanā śarīreṇa sadṛśa� indram ālakṣyeti śeṣa� |
śrātmāna� śarīra� parama� śreṣṭha� dadau | svapativeṣeṇāgatāya parasmai patibuddhyā śarīra� prayacchantyā
]
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