It would be unjust, however, to make the Brahman priests entirely
responsible for Hindoo depravity. It has indeed been maintained that
there was a time when the Hindoos were free from all the vices which
now afflict them; but that is one of the silly myths of ignorant
dreamers, on a level with the notion that savages were corrupted by
whites. One of the oldest Hindoo documents, the _Mahabharata_, gives
us the native traditions concerning these "good old times" in two
sentences:
"Though in their youthful innocence the women abandoned
their husbands, they were guilty of no offence; for
such was the rule in early times." "Just as cattle are
situated, so are human beings, too, within their
respective castes"
which suggests a state of promiscuity as decided as that which
prevailed in Australia. Civilization did not teach the Hindoos
love--for that comes last--but merely the refinements of lust, such as
even the Greeks and Romans hardly knew. Ovid's _Ars Amandi_ is a model
of purity compared with the Hindoo "Art of Love," the
_K[=a]mas[=u]tram_ (or _Kama Soutra_) of V[=a]tsy[=a]yana, which is
nothing less than a handbook for libertines, of which it would be
impossible even to print the table of contents. Whereas the translator
of Ovid into a modern language need not omit more than a page of the
text, the German translator of the _K[=a]mas[=u]tram_, Dr.
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