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YASASTILAKA AND INDIAN CULTURE
worshipper." Similarly, in a beautiful sculpture preserved in the Rajputana Museum, Ajmer, and assigned to the tenth or eleventh century, Brahma with a long beard is represented as soaring upwards, and Visņu as diving below, to explore the top and the base of the linga respectively. After their failure, Brahma is shown as standing on one side of it and Visņu on the other."
436
b) Necessity knows no law'
In Book IV Yasodhara's mother, in her plea for animal sacrifices for one's wellbeing, says that the great sage' Gautama killed even his benefactor Nadijangha to save his own life, and Visvamitra killed a dog for the same purpose. Somadeva here tampers with two stories found in the Mahabharata, Santiparva (section on apaddharma). Gautama was really a degenerate Brahman who killed the divine crane Nadījangha, perceiving no other means of sustenance, despite the great favours conferred on him by the bird. He is severely condemned in the Mahabharata for ingratitude. Viśvāmitra, on the other hand, partook of dog's flesh in the house of a Caṇḍāla, and yet incurred no sin, because he did so for the purpose of self-preservation during a famine. The story of Visvamitra feeding on dog's flesh is also referred to in Manusmrti 10. 108. It may be noted that Śrutasagara in his commentary invents fanciful stories to explain these
allusions.
Women and the practice of religion
A group of traditional stories (sruti) is referred to in the message of Amṛtamati to Yasodhara in Book IV, bearing on the duty of women to accompany their husbands in the practice of religion. She cites the wellknown instances of Rama and Sita, Draupadi and Arjuna, Sudakṣina and Dilipa, Lopamudra and Agastya, Arundhati and Vasistha, Renuka and Jamadagni. On the other hand, the danger of women engaging in religious austerities, however rigorous, unaccompanied by their husbands, is illustrated by the little known story of a Brahmin woman named Brahmabandhu, who, although she was fasting unto death, at Prayaga, was associated by scandal with a monk named Govinda.*
1 Burgess: A Guide to Elura Cave Temples (Reprint), p. 28.
2 The sculpture was examined by me during my visit to Ajmer in October, 1941. No catalogue was then available. See the illustration.
3 ' किमङ्ग महामुनि गौतमः प्राणत्राणार्थमात्मोपकारिणमपि नाडीजङ्घ न जघान । विश्वामित्रः सारमेयम् ।' p. 124.
4 ' तथाच श्रुतिः - किल वानप्रस्थभावेऽपि रामस्य सीता सधर्मचारिण्यासीत् । द्रौपदी धनंजयस्य रेणुका च जमदग्नेरिति । "यथा प्रयागे प्रायोपवेशन स्थितापि ब्रह्मबन्धूब्राह्मणी गोविन्देन परिव्राजा सह किल परीवादभागिनी बभूवेति ।
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