“In the next place, as it is his object to slander our scriptures, he [Celsus] ridicules the following statement: ‘And God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which he had taken from the man, made he a woman,’ and so on; without quoting the words which would give the hearer the impression that they are spoken with a figurative meaning. He would not even have it appear that the words were used allegorically, although he says afterward, that ‘the more modest among Jews and Christians are ashamed of these things, and endeavor to give them somehow an allegorical signification.’”
It is not an accident that the fruit of the tree of life was conceived by Christians at an early date as an apple or pomegranate, the symbol of Aphrodite. We must assume that the apples of the Hesperides which Hercules was requested to obtain, and also the apples of Iduna bestowing immortality upon the Teutonic gods, possess ultimately the same significance as the apple of Eve.
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We do not mean to gather here all the traditions about the origin of woman, but we will quote two accounts from a modern book of Hindu tales, called A Digit of the Moon and Other Love Stories from the Hindu, and translated from the original manuscripts by F. W. Bain. Here we are told of a king who falls in love with a princess when he sees her picture. He leaves his kingdom in the hands of his ministers and travels out in search of his love, accompanied by his faithful companion Rasakósha.[33] The passage containing the story of the origin of woman reads thus:
“One day, as they rested at noon beneath the thick shade of a Kadamba[34] tree, the King gazed for a long time at the portrait of his mistress. And suddenly he broke silence, and said, ‘Rasakósha, this is a woman. Now, a woman is the one thing about which I know nothing. Tell me, what is the nature of women?’ Then Rasakósha smiled, and said: ‘King, you should certainly keep this question to ask the Princess; for it is a hard question. A very terrible creature indeed is a woman, and one formed of strange elements. A propos, I will tell you a story: listen.
“‘In the beginning, when Twashtri[35] came to the creation of woman, he found that he had exhausted his materials in the making of man, and that no solid elements were left. In this dilemma, after profound meditation, he did as follows: He took the rotundity of the moon, and the curves of creepers, and the clinging of tendrils, and the trembling of grass, and the slenderness of the reed, and the bloom of flowers, and the lightness of leaves, and the tapering of the elephant’s trunk, and the glances of deer, and the clustering of rows of bees,[36] and the joyous gaiety of sunbeams, and the weeping of clouds, and the fickleness of the winds, and the timidity of the hare, and the vanity of the peacock, and the softness of the parrot’s bosom, and the hardness of adamant, and the sweetness of honey, and the cruelty of the tiger, and the warm glow of fire, and the coldness of snow, and the chattering of jays, and the cooing of the kókila,[37] and the hypocrisy of the crane, and the fidelity of the chakrawáka;[38] and compounding all these together, he made woman and gave her to man. But after one week man came to him and said: Lord, this creature that thou hast given me makes my life miserable. She chatters incessantly, and teases me beyond endurance, never leaving me alone: and she requires incessant attention, and takes all my time up, and cries about nothing, and is always idle; and so I have come to give her back again, as I cannot live with her. So Twashtri said: Very well: and he took her back. Then after another week, man came again to him, and said: Lord I find that my life is very lonely since I gave back that creature. I remember how she used to dance and sing to me, and look at me out of the corner of her eye, and play with me, and cling to me; and her laughter was music, and she was beautiful to look at, and soft to touch: so give her back to me again. So Twashtri said: Very well: and gave her back again. Then after only three days, man came to him again, and said: Lord, I know not how it is; but after all, I have come to the conclusion that she is more of a trouble than a pleasure to me: so please take her back again. But Twashtri said: Out on you! Be off! I will have no more of this. You must manage how you can. Then man said: But I cannot live with her. And Twashtri replied: Neither could you live without her. And he turned his back on man and went on with his work. Then man said: What is to be done? for I cannot live either with or without her.’
“And Rasakósha ceased, and looked at the King. But the King remained silent, gazing intently at the portrait of the Princess.”
Another story, of like character, is told in the same book, on pages 372-374, only with the difference that it points out a lesson for woman that she must cleave to her husband because she possesses no independent existence by herself. (The same, however, in the Indian story is not true of man.) This is the explanation the faithful wife Wanawallari gives to the Brahman who tempts her to leave her husband. She says:
“Once there was a time when there were neither men nor women, but the universe existed alone. And then one day, when the Creator was meditating with a view to further creation, he said to himself: ‘Something is wanting to complete the creation which I have created. It is blind, and unconscious of its own curious beauty and excellence.’ Thereupon he created a man. And instantly the creation became an object of wonder and beauty, being reflected like a picture in the mirror of the mind of the man. Then the man roamed alone in the world, wondering at the flowers and the trees and the animals, and at last he came to a pool. And he looked in and saw himself. Then full of astonishment, he exclaimed: ‘This is the most beautiful creature of all.’ And he hunted incessantly through the whole world to find it, not knowing that he was looking for himself. But when he found that in spite of all his endeavors he could never do more than see it on the surface of pools, he became sad and ceased to care about anything. Then the Creator, perceiving it, said to himself: ‘Ha! this is a difficulty which I never foresaw, arising naturally from the beauty of my work. But now, what is to be done? For here is this man, whom I made to be a mirror for my world, snared in the mirror of his own beauty. So I must somehow or other cure this evil. But I cannot make another man, for there would be two centers to the circle of the universe. Neither can I add anything to the circumference of nature, for it is perfect in itself. There is necessary, therefore, some third thing: not real, for then it would disturb the balance of the universe; nor unreal, for then it would be nothing: but poised on the border between reality and nonentity.’ So he collected the reflections on the surface of the pools, and made of them a woman. But she, as soon as she was made, began to cry. And she said: ‘Alas! alas! I am, and I am not.’ Then said the Creator: ‘Thou foolish intermediate creature, thou art a nonentity only when thou standest alone. But when thou art united to the man, thou art real in participation with his substance.’ And thus, O Brahman, apart from her husband a woman is a nonentity and a shadow without a substance: being nothing but the mirror of himself, reflected on the mirror of illusion.”
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