- Beside the lamp, the flaming hearth,
- In light of sun or moon and stars,
- Without my dear one's lustrous eyes
- This world is wholly dark to me.
At the same time he warns the unwary against reflecting over-much on female beauty—
- Let not thy thoughts, O Wanderer,
- Roam in that forest, woman's form:
- For there a robber ever lurks,
- Ready to strike—the God of Love.
In another stanza the Indian Cupid appears as a fisherman, who, casting on the ocean of this world a hook called woman, quickly catches men as fishes eager for the bait of ruddy lips, and bakes them in the fire of love.
Strange are the contradictions in which the poet finds himself involved by loving a maiden—
- Remembered she but causes pain;
- At sight of her my madness grows;
- When touched, she makes my senses reel:
- How, pray, can such an one be loved?
So towards the end of the Century the poet's heart begins to turn from the allurements of love. "Cease, maiden," he exclaims, "to cast thy glances on me: thy trouble is in vain. I am an altered man; youth has gone by and my thoughts are bent on the forest; my infatuation is over, and the whole world I now account but as a wisp of straw." Thus Bhartṛihari prepares the way for his third collection, the "Century of Renunciation."
A short but charming treasury of detached erotic verses is the Çṛingāra-tilaka, which tradition attributes
