Sexual Life in Ancient India: A Study in the Comparative History of Indian Culture v2.c11.145

v2.c11.145

Further love-kindlers are the beauties of nature, and spring with all its signs of bursting life: the green of plants and splendour of flowers, bird-song, and the humming of bees, and all the rest; and the wind, particularly the spring wind, is the arousing friend not only of fire, but also of Kāma. This is more particularly described in the account already given of how Pāṇḍu finds death in the way Ovid wished for, and that Frenchwoman in Brantôme; and is touched on or told at length in other tales. Here we may recall, too, the æsthetically so well thought out description of the forest glories in the old saga of Duṣyanta and Ṣakuntalā, which introduces in a twofold meaning the love scenes that follow it. Cp., for instance, also iii, 136.1-3; 158.67-69. But a *locus classicus* is to be found in Rām., iv, 1 ff.