The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,273 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1.

The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 2,273 pages of information about The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1.
none else my heart liketh.  I never bathe or eat or sleep till he that is my husband hath bathed or eaten or slept,—­till, in fact, our attendants have bathed, eaten, or slept.  Whether returning from the field, the forest, or the town, hastily rising up I always salute my husband with water and a seat.  I always keep the house and all household articles and the food that is to be taken well-ordered and clean.  Carefully do I keep the rice, and serve the food at the proper time.  I never indulge in angry and fretful speech, and never imitate women that are wicked.  Keeping idleness at distance I always do what is agreeable.  I never laugh except at a jest, and never stay for any length of time at the house-gate.  I never stay long in places for answering calls of nature, nor in pleasure-gardens attached to the house.  I always refrain from laughing loudly and indulging in high passion, and from everything that may give offence.  Indeed, O Satyabhama, I always am engaged in waiting upon my lords.  A separation from my lords is never agreeable to me.  When my husband leaveth home for the sake of any relative, then renouncing flowers and fragrant paste of every kind, I begin to undergo penances.  Whatever my husband drinketh not, whatever my husband eateth not, whatever my husband enjoyeth not, I ever renounce.  O beautiful lady, decked in ornaments and ever controlled by the instruction imparted to me, I always devotedly seek the good of my lord.  Those duties that my mother-in-law had told me of in respect of relatives, as also the duties of alms-giving, of offering worship to the gods, of oblations to the diseased, of boiling food in pots on auspicious days for offer to ancestors and guests of reverence and service to those that deserve our regards, and all else that is known to me, I always discharge day and night, without idleness of any kind.  Having with my whole heart recourse to humility and approved rules I serve my meek and truthful lords ever observant of virtue, regarding them as poisonous snakes capable of being excited at a trifle.  I think that to be eternal virtue for women which is based upon a regard for the husband.  The husband is the wife’s god, and he is her refuge.  Indeed, there is no other refuge for her.  How can, then, the wife do the least injury to her lord?  I never, in sleeping or eating or adorning any person, act against the wishes of my lord, and always guided by my husbands, I never speak ill of my mother-in-law.  O blessed lady, my husbands have become obedient to me in consequence of my diligence, my alacrity, and the humility with which I serve superiors.  Personally do I wait every day with food and drink and clothes upon the revered and truthful Kunti—­that mother of heroes.  Never do I show any preference for myself over her in matters of food and attire, and never do I reprove in words that princess equal unto the Earth herself in forgiveness.  Formerly, eight thousand Brahmanas were daily fed in the palace
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The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.