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_ The notion that the fever of love may become so severe as to lead to death plays an important role in Hindoo amorous sophistry. "Hindoo casuists," says Lamairesse (151, 179), "always have a peremptory reason, in their own eyes, for dispensing with all scruples in love-affairs: the necessity of not dying for love." "It is permissible," says the author of _Kama Soutra_, "to seduce another man's wife if one is in danger of dying from love for her;" upon which Lamairesse comments:
"This principle, liberally interpreted by those
interested, excuses all intrigues; in theory it is
capable of accommodating itself to all cases, and in
the practice of the Hindoos it does thus accommodate
itself. It is based on the belief that the souls of men
who die of ungratified desires flit about a long time
as manes before transmigrating."
Thus did the wily priests invoke the aid even of superstition to foster that national licentiousness by which they themselves profited most. Small wonder that the _Hitopadesa_ declared (92) that "there is perhaps in all the world not a man who covets not his neighbor's wife;" or that the same collection of wise stories and maxims should take an equally low view of feminine morals (39, 40, 41, 54, 88); _e.g._ (in substance): "Then only is a wife faithful to her husband, when no other man covets her." "Seek chastity in those women only who have no opportunity to meet a lover." "A woman's lust can no more be satisfied than a fire's greed for wood, the ocean's thirst for rivers, death's desire for victims." Another verse in the _Hitopadesa_ (13) declares frankly that of the six good things in the world two of them are a caressing wife and a devoted sweetheart beside her--upon which the editor, Johannes Hertel, comments: "To a Hindoo there is nothing objectionable in such a sentiment." _
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