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THE MEETING OF EAST AND WEST much later work than Kautilya's, composed, sometimes delightfully, in didactic verse, and claiming to contain the extract or essence of the earlier compilation. Valuable materials appear also in many of the didactic dialogues, tales and fables of the great national epic, the Mahābhārata-stray bits and fragments from treatises now lost, coming down from the Indian feudal age of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. And we have some other minor works in which the science is modified, occasionally, to accord somewhat with the claims of ethics and religion.21
From such sources a vigorous, resourceful, and absolutely realistic philosophy of practical life is to be extracted, as well as a theory of diplomacy and government that is certainly comparable to the statecraft of Machiavelli and Hobbes. The Indian Arthaśāstra bcars comparison and shares many features, also, with Plato's Republic and Laws, and Aristotle's Politics.
2. Kāma, the second of the four ends of life, is pleasure and love. In Indian mythology, Kāma is the counterpart of Cupid. He is the Hindu god of love, who, with flower-bow and five flower-arrows, sends desire quivering to the heart. Kāma is desire incarnate, and, as such, lord and master of the earth, as well as of the lower celestial spheres.
The principal surviving classic of India's Kāma teaching is Vātsyāyana's celebrated Kāmasutra.22 This work has earned India an ambiguous reputation for sensuality that is rather misleading; for the subject is presented on an entirely secularized and technical level, more or less as a textbook for lovers and courtesans. The dominant attitude of the Hindu, in actuality, is aus
21 A review of the literature and discussion of the whole topic will be found in M. Wintcrnitz, Geschichte der indischen Litteratur, Leipzig, 1920, Bd. III, pp. 504-536.
22 Sūtra, a thread, string of rules, aphorisms (compare Latin sutura, English "suture" and "scw"). A sūtra is a handbook, or book of rules. There are sūtras for eiery department of Indian life. The grcat period of composition of these aphoristic summaries was c. 500-200 B.C
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| SR No. | 007309 |
| Book Title | Philosophies of India |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell |
| Publisher | Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd |
| Publication Year | 1953 |
| Total Pages | 709 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 34 MB |