It was about 2500 years back from now, on the land of Indian subcontinent, that a youngman called Siddhartha fell in love with Ahilya, wife of a Vaidic scholar Gautam Buddha of Deva community. Siddhartha applied make-up on his persona to look like Gautam and went to Ahilya when real Gautam was away from home. Siddhartha posed as the real Gautam and made love with Ahilya, and made her pregnant. This person later declared himself as Buddha and established Bauddha Religion.
On return home of real
Gautam and his wish for a love play, Ahilya was surprised and told him that he
had been with her in bed not long back. Gradually, the misdeed of Siddhartha
came to light which saddened Ahilya. On knowing pregnancy of Ahilya from him,
Siddhartha presented his claim on Ahilya as his wife for she would soon be the
mother of his child. Brahma, the seniormost person of Deva community,
intervened and asked Ahilya about the truth. She confirmed that she was going
to be the mother of Siddhartha;s child. Ahilya was given to her as his wife.
This incidence put up
a question mark on wisdom of women, particularly when many wild races were
coming to the land and trying to play tricks on women for their sexual
exploitation. With this, racial purity was considered to be in danger. Ways
were searched for keeping the racial purity.
Second danger to
maintaining racial purity was from women of other races asking for impregnation
from scholarly superior persons and even enticing them for copulation. Vaidic
scholars used to oblige such women as their acts of mercy on the demanding
women. Children so produced would usually have attributes from both the
parents. This was not to the liking of scholarly persons. They wanted children
produced by them to have their own attributes only. Even women too wanted the
same for their children being bright scholars irrespective of their own racial
backgrounds.
Third danger to racial
purity was seen from Vaidic scholars liking women from other races. For
example, Muni Agastya marrying princesses of Persia, ex-wives of Alexander,
after killing their husband during his camping on the subcontinent. Even Jesus
Christ married women of another race. Such scholars too didn't like their
children to have racial attributes of their mothers'.
With all the
above-said experiences of Vaidic scholars, they considered it in the interest
of maintaining racial purity that the society must have domination of men, as
women were too soft, delicate and prone for corruption that they can't be
relied on for keeping purity of the race.
A medicinal way for
maintaining racial purity was invented by Muni Mahavir, also known as Varddhaman
by followers of Jainism, and provided in Bhavaprakash - an exhaustive work on
Ayurveda by Muni Kapil and Agastya. Use of roasted Asafoetida (solidified
extraction from tree Asafoetida) to be regularly consumed by men along with
their being vegetarian. This would ensure that children produced by such men
would have attributes like their fathers only irrespective of their mothers. He
provides the name 'Agnivesh' to this property of men. Muni Kapil and Agastya,
authors of vaidic scripture Bhavaprakash declared that they became fully
'agnivesh', meaning thereby that they produced children like themselves.
Parpatee (roasted
Asafoetida) is said to be a fragrant material, takes care of the consumer like
a mother. It has properties of cold, complexion improver and is eliminator of
poisons in wounds.
