An invaluable insight into
what is so very special in being a woman—virgin, wife and mother— is
found in what an Abyssinian woman told Frobenius. In her speech we find
the reason for our kanyas remaining such an enigma to men
throughout the ages: “How can a man know what a woman’s life is?…He
is the same before he has sought out a woman for the first time and
afterwards. But the day when a woman enjoys her first love cuts her in
two…The man spends a night by a woman and goes away. His life and body
are always the same…He does not know the difference before love and
after love, before motherhood and after motherhood…Only a woman can know
that and speak of that. That is why we won’t be told what to do by our
husbands. A woman can only do one thing…She must always be as her nature
is. She must always be maiden and always be mother. Before every love she
is a maiden, after every love she is a mother.”[[1]]
We have only to recall the encounters of Surya, Dharma, Vayu, Indra and
Pandu with Pritha, of Parashara and Shantanu with Gandhakali, of Draupadi
with her husbands, of Ulupi with Arjuna, of Indra with Ahalya, to realise
the profundity of this utterance.
C.G. Jung, while discussing
the phenomenon of the maiden describes her “as not altogether human in
the usual sense; she is either of unknown or peculiar origin, or she looks
strange or undergoes strange experiences.”[[1]]
This fits the kanyas as a class. The maiden represents the Anima
archetype in man in whose realm the categories of good and bad do not
exist: “bodily life as well as psychic life have the impudence to get
along much better without conventional morality, and they often remain the
healthier for it.”[[1]] So long as a woman is
content to be just a man’s woman, she is devoid of individuality, and
acts as a willing vessel for masculine projections. On the other hand, the
maiden uses the anima of man to gain her natural ends (Bernard Shaw called
it the Life Force). Amply do we see in the cases of these maidens that,
“The anima lives beyond all categories, and can therefore dispense with
blame as well as with praise.”[[1]]
The anima is characterised not just by this zest for life, but also by
“a secret knowledge, a hidden wisdom… something like a hidden purpose,
a superior knowledge of life’ laws”[[1]]
which we see in this group of epic women. That is why Shantanu, Bhishma,
Dhritarashtra, Pandu, the Kaunteyas, Surgriva can never quite come to
grips with Satyavati, Kunti, Draupadi and Tara and are ever in awe of
them.
One of the finest instances of
the working of anima is found in the Ganga-Shantanu relationship. Ganga is
yet another kanya, wedded to both Vishnu and Shiva in their realms
and also to the human king of Hastinapura, but utterly independent in
everything that she does. On her first appearance, she seats herself on
Pratipa’s right thigh and demands that he take her:
“It is improper to refuse a
woman in love…
I am not ugly, she said,
I do not bring ill fortune,
No one has cast a slur on me,
I am not unfit for sexual
enjoyment.
I am celestial, I am
beautiful,
I love you. Take me, my
lord.” (Adi Parva, 97. 5, 7)
This is the quintessential kanya
that we find also in Devayani soliciting Kacha and Yayati, in Ulupi
spiriting Arjuna away and in Urvashi approaching Arjuna. After being
turned down, Ganga enchants Pratipa’s son Shantanu, extorting a promise
that he will never interfere in anything she does. Behind the puzzle of
the heartless sport of drowning her new-born sons lies a deeper meaning
that, when understood, divests her of chaotic capriciousness and gives
rise to a new cosmos of understanding. That is precisely what Veda Vyasa
does, creating a new archetype of meaning, which the spouses of these
wondrous maidens fail to achieve.
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An invaluable insight into
what is so very special in being a woman—virgin, wife and mother— is
found in what an Abyssinian woman told Frobenius. In her speech we find
the reason for our kanyas remaining such an enigma to men
throughout the ages: “How can a man know what a woman’s life is?…He
is the same before he has sought out a woman for the first time and
afterwards. But the day when a woman enjoys her first love cuts her in
two…The man spends a night by a woman and goes away. His life and body
are always the same…He does not know the difference before love and
after love, before motherhood and after motherhood…Only a woman can know
that and speak of that. That is why we won’t be told what to do by our
husbands. A woman can only do one thing…She must always be as her nature
is. She must always be maiden and always be mother. Before every love she
is a maiden, after every love she is a mother.”
