Courtesan Tempts Rishyashringa with Pleasures

Rishyashringa had never seen a woman. He had been born in the forest and raised in the hermitage of his father, Vibhandaka Kashyapa, with no human company beyond the ascetics who came and went. He knew roots and fruit, sacrificial fires and Vedic recitations. He did not know that there were two kinds of human beings. When the courtesan arrived, he saw only a visitor — radiant, graceful, unlike anyone who had ever walked into the clearing. He greeted her with the hospitality due to any guest. "O sage! Is everything well with the ascetics here?" she asked. "Are there plenty of roots and fruit? Do you find pleasure in this hermitage? I have come here to visit you." Rishyashringa answered with the warmth of someone who had never learned suspicion. "You shine with radiance like the light. I think that you are worthy of showing obeisance. I will give you water to wash your feet, and according to dharma, fruits and roots to satisfy your desires." He offered her a seat on a mat of kusha grass covered with black antelope skin. He asked where her hermitage was. He asked what vow she was observing. "My beautiful hermitage is three yojanas away, on the other side of the mountain," she said. "My dharma is not to accept obeisance. Nor do I touch water to wash my feet." He offered her ripe fruit — bhallas, amlakas, parushakas, ingudas, dhanvanas, priyalas — everything the forest provided. She discarded all of it. Instead, she brought out food he had never seen: expensive, beautiful to look at, extremely tasteful. She gave him fragrant garlands, radiant garments, and the best of drinks. She played and laughed and amused herself. She played at his side with a ball, moving like a flowering creeper in the wind. She touched his body with hers and embraced him again and again. She bent the branches of trees — sarjas, ashokas, tilakas — and plucked their flowers. Rishyashringa had no name for what was happening to him. He had no framework for desire. But his body knew before his mind did. She pressed against him, as if without shame, overcome with liquor, and tempted the maharshi's son. She saw the change in him. Then, pretending that the time for agnihotra (the fire sacrifice) had come, she slowly walked away — casting backward glances as she left. Rishyashringa was overcome with desire. He lost his senses. In her absence, he felt emptiness. He sighed again and again in distress.