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."