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regarded as a stepping stone to heaven as well as Moksa (Emancipation). No other animate life except that of men is capable of producing heaven as a liberation. The Devībhagavata Purāņa has explained it in a lucid manner. I
In ancient religion in every country it was believed that man was originally androgynous i. e. in the beginning there was no division of sex. The same man was male in one part and feamle in the other. We have a record of this tradition in Plato.2 A similar tradition is recorded in Devibhāgavata and it is said that the first of the fourteen Manus i. e. Svāyambhuva originated from the right side of the Brahmā while Satarūpa took her birth from the left side of the Brahman.s
It is stated in the symposium of Plato' that Aristophanus refers to an old myth according to which man was in the beginning of the creation androgynous i. e. self complete, selfsatisfied. It is said that gods of heaven were afraid of man. Thereafter the Jews, the Lord of the Devas, bisected man into two parts male and female. Hence-forward there were two appropriate classes of human beings, one belonging to the category of male and the other female. Since then both each male as well as female is half, so that for complete satisfaction one stands in need of the other half. The Hindu conception of wife as Ardhanginī points to this belief. Now this bisection of man is explained by Aristophanes as due to the jealousy of the gods but the christians attribute this mutilation to the original sin of man. As a result of this we find difference between man and man and difference within man himself.4
1. Devi Bhagavata Purāņa 3.25. 18-19. . 2. History of Comparative religion, Bacon, Press.
3. Devi Bhagavata Purīna. III. 13-15. , 4, History of Comparative Religion PP. 173-74.
