" "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."
WHAT HINDOO POETS ADMIRE IN WOMEN
The Hindoo's inability to rise above sensuality also manifests itself
in his admiration of personal beauty, which is purely carnal. No. 217
of Hala's anthology declares:
"Her face resembles the moon, the juice of her mouth
nectar; but wherewith shall I compare (my delight) when
I seize her, amid violent struggles, by the head and
kiss her?"
Apart from such grotesque comparisons of the face to the moon, or of
the teeth to the lotos, there is nothing in the amorous hyperbole of
Hindoo poets that rises above the voluptuous into the neighborhood of
esthetic admiration. Hindoo statues embodying the poets' ideal of
women's waists so narrow that they can be spanned by the hand, show
how infinitely inferior the Hindoos were to the Greeks in their
appreciation of human beauty.
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