User:Rudrasharman/Notes/Datapoints

Brhaddevata 4.11-15

• First, the Sanskrit (from Macdonell, pp.38-39).

dvāvucasthyabṛhaspatī ṛṣiputrau babhūvatuḥ
āsīducasthyabhāryā tu mamatā nāma bhārgavī (11)
tāṃ kanīyānbṛhaspatir maithunāyopacakrame
śukrasyotsargakāle tu garbhastaṃ pratyabhāṣata (12)
ihāsmi pūrvasaṃbhūto na kāryaḥ śukrasaṃkara
tacchukrapratiṣedhaṃ tu na mamarṣa bṛhaspatiḥ (13)
sa vyājahāra taṃ garbhaṃ tamaste dīrghamastviti
sa ca dīrghatamā nāma babhūvarṣirucasthyajaḥ (14)
sa jāto 'bhyatapaddevān akasmādandhatāṃ gataḥ
dadurdevāstu tannetre tato 'nandho babhūva saḥ (15)

(Note: Tokunaga has a revised edition with some differences.)

• Next, Macdonell's translation: full text (pp.128-129)

11. There were (once) two seers' sons, Ucathya and Brhaspati.
Now Ucathya's wife was Mamata by name, of the race of Bhrgu.
12. Brhaspati, the younger (of the two), approached her for sexual intercourse.
Now at the time of impregnation the embryo addressed him:
13. 'Here I am previously engendered; you must not cause a commingling of seed.'
Brhaspati, however, could not brook this remonstrance about the seed.
14. (So) he addressed the embryo: 'Long Darkness shall be your lot.'
And (hence) the seer, Ucathya's son, was born with the name Dirghatamas (Long Darkness).
15. He when born distressed the gods, having become suddenly blind.
The gods, however, gave him (the use of) his eyes (tannetre); so he was cured of his blindness.

• Finally, how (ahem) an Eminent Sanskritist renders it: Google Books

The sage Brhaspati tried to rape Mamata, the wife of his brother Utathya(sic), when Mamata was pregnant. But the unborn embryo protected his mother by kicking out the intruding penis, shouting, "Get out, uncle! There's only room for one in here, and I was here first!" The infuriated rapist cursed the embryo to be blind; the child was born as Dirghatamas ("Long Darkness") [4.11-15]

(Wendy Doniger, "When a Lingam Is Just a Good Cigar: Psychoanalysis and Hindu Sexual Fantasies")

• It's possible that Doniger confused Brhaddevata.4.11-15 with the story of Dirghatamas in the Mahabharata (1.104). But there again, the nature of the complaint, and indeed what got "rejected", isn't in line with the tendentious Freudian thesis Doniger wanted to advance.
• Macdonell's "at the time of impregnation" is a Victorian euphemism. śukrasyotsargakāle = śukrasya + utsarga + kāle = "semen" (the -sya ending is the genitive case) + "outpouring" + "time" (in locative case) = "at the time of ejaculation". But otherwise the translation is pretty faithful, with due allowance for the difficulties in the last line.
• Macdonell's translation of maithunāyopacakrame as "approached her for sexual intercourse" seems to be literal, i.e. taking upa+krama as "approach" and maithuna as "sexual intercourse" (which is not the only meaning of the word). Now, it so happens that upakrama can also (albeit rarely) connote "force" or "attack". However, Monier-Williams has an entry specifically for maithuna, in the dative case with verbal forms upa + √gam or upa + √kram, to mean "to have sexual intercourse", i.e. just a plain statement of the fact, so that maithunāyopacakrame is actually an idiom over-riding any direct interpretation of upa + krama. ( cakrame is the verb in the perfect tense.)